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Our Plea for Union 



AND THE 



Present Crisis 



BY 

Herbert L. Willett. 



the christian century company 

385 Dearborn Street 
CHICAGO. 



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p""":^^ 



[library of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

KOV 27 1905 

CopyrieM Entry 
ClhSS <^ XXc. Ho. 
COPY B. 



Copyrighted 1901 

BY 

The Christian Century Company 



FOREWORD. 



A crisis is a culmination and a beginning. It is a 
moment when some forces come to their mature ex- 
pression and others first appear. It is an hour when 
there occurs a change of front. It is a day of oppor- 
tunity. It may be marked by features which give it 
a definite and unmistakable character^ so that none 
can fail to recognize either its importance or the 
moment of its climax. Such was the nature of that 
day in which Bismarck sent the celebrated message to 
Napoleon III, or the hour in which Fort Sumter was 
attacked, or the time set by England's ultimatum to 
the South African republics. But usually the crises 
of history are marked by no such striking features,, 
and are seen by most people only in retrospect, if at 
all. The renaissance csime on quietly, and men pres- 
ently opened their eyes to discover that they were 
living in a new Europe, whose birth no one had beheld. 
The Reformation was not produced by the nailing up 
of the theses on the door of the Castle church at 
Wittenburg, though this brave act of Luther's drew 
the eyes of the world to the struggle. The Oath of 
the Tennis Court was but an episode in a movement 



4 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

which was not alone the French Revolution^ but, as 
Hugo observes, the ''change of front of the universe/' 
Choices are made and determinations reached in mo- 
ments when no changes are apparent in the outward 
show of things. It is in the belief that the Disciples 
of Christ are passing through a profoundly impor- 
tant, and in many respects a transitional, period in 
their history that the following chapters have been 
prepared. There may be no apparent change in their 
work or their relations to the Christian forces around 
them, yet such changes are occurring, and will inevi- 
tably give direction to the future growth and influ- 
ence of the movement. There are, no doubt, those 
who see no change, who feel that this body of people 
is moving satisfactorily in its appointed and inevitable 
course ; who declare that there are no signs of change, 
but that since the fathers fell asleep all things continue 
as they were. It is with the hope that this opinion 
may receive careful reconsideration by the thought- 
ful among us; that present forces and opportunities 
may be wisely estimated by us ; that doors now open 
may be entered; that hopes only partially realized 
may come to fruition ; in a word, that we may by the 
grace of God serve the generation in which we live 
to the fullest degree, that these chapters are given 
their present form. 

September i. H. L. W. 



INTRODUCTION. 



THE TASK OF THE NEW CENTURY. 

The Disciples of Christ are old enough as a religious 
body to understand something of their place in the 
programme of American Christianity, as judged by 
their past career and their present standing; and no 
moment is more favorable for taking inventory of 
their position and promise than this hour, in which the 
two centuries meet. Are the people who comprise the 
membership of this communion content with the record 
already made ? If they are, is there anything more to 
be sought for the future? If not content, how shall 
their purposes be reaHzed? 

No one will deny that much has been done. The 
story of the eighty years since this reformation began 
is thrilling. From a feeble, protesting body we have 
become a mighty folk. From the state of "an infant 
crying in the night, an infant crying for the light," 



6 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

we have grown able to speak with a voice that com- 
mands attention, if not respect, in most quarters of the 
church. Our machinery is becoming in an increasing 
degree adequate to our needs; our schools, journals, 
missionary and philanthropic agencies are increasingly 
efficient ; our ministry is rising gradually to recognize 
its educational responsibilities and to prepare itself for 
the needs of the hour. 

Yet the question arises. What does this million and 
a quarter of people propose to accomplish? Where 
their voice is heard in the counsels of the church at 
large they are understood to stand for two principles : 
First, the unity of the people of God; second, the 
restoration of the apostolic teaching and practice as the 
ground of such unity. These principles seem so sim- 
ple and vital to us, that we do not easily understand the 
problems that present themselves to the man who from 
another angle watches our movements. He is almost 
certain to be struck with certain facts which are likely 
to escape our attention, standing, as we do, within the 
circle of our history and effort. Among these facts 
which seem clear to him, are the following: First, 
although we are protesting against sectarianism, we 
appear to be only one more among the already too nu- 
merous denominations into which the church is divided. 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS 7 

Second, judging from our compactness of organiza- 
tion and party zeal as a body, we have as much of the 
sect spirit as any denomination in Christendom. Some 
of our churches and preachers display elements of 
bigotry and intolerance that would have done credit 
to the most narrow and belligerent sect in the most 
polemical period of Christian history. Third, we who 
proclaim our zeal for Christian unity display in a ma- 
jority of cases not only an indifference to its practical 
realization in the communities where we exist, but are 
actually the most reluctant to engage in efforts of a 
unifying character, such as union evangelistic services, 
efforts for civic righteousness which demand the ear- 
nest co-operation of all Christians, fraternity and com- 
ity in missionary work, both in America and on foreign 
soil, and such other forms of united effort as the spirit 
of love and fellowship would dictate. 

Again, when we consider our plea for the restoration 
of apostolic Christianity, this outside observer is like- 
ly to maintain two things : First, that the restora- 
tion of the conditions prevailing in the apostolic 
churches is both impossible and undesirable. No one, 
he would say, wishes to go back to the faulty and im- 
perfect church life of the first century. The plane of 
Christian life of our time is much higher than that of 



8 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

the members of the churches in Corinth, Ephesus, Gala- 
tia and Rome. Moreover, the movement of the church 
is forward, not backward. The real cry of the church 
should be ''Forward to Christ," not "Back to Christ,'' 
for our Leader is ever before us. Second, that if it 
be understood that it is the ideals of the apostolic 
church and not the actual conditions that we seek to re- 
store, we as Disciples of Christ are no more anxious to 
see this end accomplished than are our religious neigh- 
bors ; that they as sincerely seek to be obedient to Christ 
as do we, and that in the matter of being led by his 
spirit into the possession of the holy fruit of Christian 
character, it often appears that the advantage is with 
them rather than with us. He would say that if an 
earnest effort to accomplish the will of our Lord be 
the test of a people, we have nothing whereof to boast ; 
and that the commendation upon those who make sin- 
cere and strenuous attempt to realize the large and 
essential things of Christian life rather than the small 
and inconsequential ends of a legal correctness which 
forgets the spirit of the Master in the effort to conform 
to the mint, anise and cumin of the Christian law, 
would be likely to rest upon some of our religious 
neighbors rather than upon us. 

One need not concern himself to answer these state- 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS. 9 

ments all in a breath. For this ample time may be 
taken, and it is believed that a suitable answer can be 
made. But the important point for consideration is: 
How much truth do these affirmations of our neigh- 
bors regarding us contain ? And if there be any truth 
in them, how do we propose to remedy the situation ? 
Upon the answer to these questions, not in the attitude 
of resentment of criticism, but of sincere and candid 
examination of the facts, rests our* future. If they are 
true, and we make no change, we are already fore- 
doomed to come to an early close of our period of 
growth and promise, and to be relegated to the limbo 
of useless and obsolete religious movements, while 
others worthier than we arise to carrv forward the 
principles to which for a time we gave a too narrow 
and partisan advocacy. 



CHAPTER I. 



ARE THE DISCIPLES A DEXOMINATIOh^f 

A man comes into most intimate acquaintance with 
himself in the light of criticism. A body of people may 
obtain like knowledge in a similar manner. It is there- 
fore profitable for us as a people to have pointed out 
some of the popular impressions regarding the Disci- 
ples which one m^eets in conversation with those of 
other religious communions, and sees sometimes in 
religious journals other than our own. There is al- 
ways instruction to be gained in getting another's 
view of oneself, no matter whether that view is friend- 
ly or hostile. It cannot fail to be informing, if the 
critic be worthy of consideration ; and certainly the 
opinion which gains currency in religious circles re- 
garding any particular body of people is likely to ap- 
proach the truth in most respects. There may have 
been a time when we were ''everywhere spoken against," 

and a fair and discriminating judgment was not to be 

n 



12 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

expected. Certainly that day has passed. We are like- 
ly to-day to receive all the respect we merit. We as- 
sume for ourselves far too important a place in public 
estimation if we fancy that any considerable proportion 
of the Christian world is persistently opposed to us. 
There is apparently a class of our people who imagine 
it is still true, but outside of rather narrow limits, with- 
in which the original antagonism against a new and 
unknown people persists, it has no longer a reality. 
In any community we are likely to be respected in pro- 
portion to our deserts, and if hostile demonstrations oc- 
cur, or disparaging opinions exist, they are probably 
the result of causes which lie in the character and dis- 
position of the local church, rather than in the plea 
or work of the Disciples in general. 

What, then, are the items which enter into the opin- 
ion of the outside circle of fair-minded observers of 
our movement ? If we have patience to listen to them 
and consider their value, we may learn something of 
the influence we are exerting upon Christian thought 
and of the probable success which awaits our efforts. 
If we should discover that certain changes in our meth- 
ods of procedure are expedient, we ought not to de- 
cline such amendment. But we shall at least wish to 
weigh the question judicially and without passion. 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS. 13 

Among these items the first is this : That, although 
we are protesting against sectarianism, we appear to 
be only one more among the already too numerous de- 
nominations into which the church is divided. Those 
of us who are most eager for freedom from all de- 
nominational trappings can hardly deny that the con- 
tention has the appearance of soundness. A denomina- 
tion, as the w^ord has come to be used in the ecclesiasti- 
cal vocabulary, is a group of people with a body of be- 
liefs differentiating it more or less clearly from other 
religious bodies ; with a name, or perhaps a variety of 
names, which, either essentially or by usage, has a dis- 
tinct content as applied to that body ; with certain kinds 
of denominational machinery, such as colleges, jour- 
nals, missionary and philanthropic societies or boards, 
answerable for their procedure to that special body, 
and to it alone. Wherever these elements are found in 
combination it will be difficult to persuade the observer 
that it is anything but a denomination. Now all these 
things are true of the Disciples of Christ, and at any 
other moment than when we are protesting against be- 
ing called a denomination we are apparently proud of 
the fact. Do we not boast of our milUon and a quar- 
ter of members ? Do we not claim to be fifth among 
American rehgious bodies? Are we not proud of our 



14 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

colleges, of our missionary and philanthropic work, 
and of some of our journals? And even upon the 
question of name we are unhappily compelled to hold 
the same position. When we use the title "Christian 
Church'' we always distinguish in our own minds be- 
tween the universal church and our own people, and 
the distinction is apparent to those who hear or read. 
When we say "Disciples of Christ" we use a Biblical 
expression in the distinctive and appropriate sense 
imposed historically upon us. So upon all sides, so 
far as a merely external judgment is concerned, the 
contention that we are a denomination is justified. 

But the real facts lie deeper down than the sur- 
face. The true answer to the question can only rise 
out of an understanding of our purposes. That we 
hold the position and carry the marks of a denomi- 
nation was a necessity imposed upon us by hard ex- 
periences in our infant days. Thrust out, because of 
our plea for unity, from churches where we hoped to 
remain as helpers to the realization of new spiritual 
possibilities, we were compelled to live by ourselves 
or die. We preferred not to die. Therefore we are 
as we are. But denominationalism is not wholly a 
matter of outward position, but essentially one of 
purpose and motive. We believe that the great body 



^ND THE PRESENT CRISIS. 15 

of the Disciples regard their separate existence as a 
tentative and temporary expedient, not as a perma- 
nent or desirable estate. We are looking hopefully 
and confidently forward to the time when we shall 
not exist as a fragment of the church, even with so 
noble and holy a plea as we proclaim, but as parts 
of that undivided totality, which is the body of Christ. 
Nor do we expect that this consummation will be 
reached by the absorption of our religious neighbors 
into ''our church," but by the pervasion of the whole 
brotherhood of believers with the spirit of the Master^ 
so that, as at first, the multitude of them that believe 
shall be of one heart and of one soul, neither shall 
any of them say that the things he possesses are his 
own ; but they shall have all things in common. 

That man is foolish who stops to contend over the 
question as to whether or not we are a denomina- 
tion. All his protestations will avail little if the spirit 
of denominational pride and possession characterizes 
us. To all his careful reasonings on the subject the 
outside observer, like Gallio, will be apt to reply im- 
patiently : "If it be a question of words and names and 
of your opinions, look ye to it ; for I will be no judge of 
such matters." 

To the man who regards our legitimate work as the 



16 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

enlargement and consolidation of a religious organ- 
ization, with distinctive watchwords, separate machin- 
ery and a spirit of eager endeavor to obtain prestige 
and place as a body of Christians among others of 
similar sort — to that man we are a denomination, in 
the worst sense of the term, though he may attempt 
most earnestly of all to deny the fact. While to the 
one who sees our work to be that of a group of peo- 
ple calling the attention of the church to two great 
and neglected truths, the necessity for unity among the 
people of God and the apostolic programme as the 
only basis of that union, and willing to suffer the re- 
proach of separatism only for the time and as a means 
to the great ends sought — to such a man we can never 
appear to be a denomination, but only a voice, like John 
of old, proclaiming the coming of the kingdom of God, 
and denouncing the sins which hinder its realization. 



CHAPTER II. 



HAVE WE THE SECT SPIRIT? 

The gift of seeing ourselves as others see us is not 
granted to all mortals, but some are fortunate enough 
to learn something of themselves from their friends, 
whose candor supplies what would otherwise be lack- 
ing. It has already been remarked that certain things 
are affirmed of the Disciples and their work by people 
who stand outside our circle, and whose opinions are 
entitled to respect. The first of the statements to the 
effect that, although protesting against denomination- 
alism, we apparently have added another to the divi- 
sions of the church, is followed by a second. 

It is, in effect, the charge that, judging from our 
compactness of organization and our party zeal as a 
body, we have as much of the sect spirit as any de- 
nomination in Christendom. The point is made that 
some of our churches and preachers display elements 
of bigotry and intolerance that would have done 

17 



18 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

credit to the most narrow and belligerent sect in the 
most polemical period of Christian history. We are 
ready to acknowledge that if judgment of the whole 
were to be formed by inspection of some of the parts, 
the people known as the Disciples of Christ might 
have to rest under the reproach of this censure. We 
are compelled to confess with shame that some of our 
churches and preachers apparently possess the very 
character described. We have seen men who called 
themselves Disciples whose only conception of loy- 
alty to the gospel appeared to be a fervent desire to 
attack every form of Christian teaching that differed 
by a hair's breadth from that which they had been ac- 
customed to believe; who could not understand how 
any man could be a follower of our Lord and hold 
views different in any degree from their own. To 
them all the churches not of our ''faith and order'' were 
so many breeders of error in the community, and it 
was just as essential to save a man from the thraldom 
of Methodism or the darkness of Presbyterianism as 
from infidelity or Mohammedanism. There have been 
men of this type in our ranks. Unfortunately their 
race is not yet extinct. 

But one should be charitable enough to inquire as 
to the genesis of this spirit of intolerance in some few 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS. 19 

sections of our brotherhood; for those who perceive 
the unchristian nature of such a spirit, and its obstruc- 
tive influence upon all efforts toward the unity of God's 
people, might be puzzled to account for such theologi- 
cal pugilism in a people professing to represent the 
spirit of harmony and union. The explanation is 
perhaps to be found in part in the style of propaganda 
with wdiich this reformation began. The ears of the 
religious w^orld were heavy and their eyes they had 
closed. The individualism of the eighteenth century 
had wrought its natural results in a spirit of sectism, 
division and suspicion which had scattered Europe 
and America with the fragments of the dismembered 
body of Christ. When the Campbells, father and son, 
and their co-laborers, began their plea for the union 
of these sundered circles of Christians, their words 
seemed like idle tales. Ephraim was joined to his 
idols. He was content to feed upon the east wind. 
Nothing less than a message of flame and words of fire 
could be sufficient for such things. The reformers 
hurled stones when the flinging of grass w^as seen to be 
ineffectual to make the saucy boys in the tree of secta- 
rian zeal listen to reason. The ''Christian Baptist" 
was issued, and its pages were full of thunder. Its 
attacks upon the ecclesiastical arrogance and pride of 



20 OUR PLEA FOR JJNIOK 

the time were tremendous. It left unsounded no note 
of warning against priestcraft and delusion in the 
church, both Protestant and Roman. The effect was 
instantaneous. The spirit of antagonism was roused. 
The giant, thus prodded in the eye while sleeping, rose 
up with a roar to find and destroy the intrepid Ulysses 
and his band. The fight waxed hot. Many were drawn 
by their sympathies to'the side of the reformers, and 
the movement against an unscriptural and divided 
orthodoxy grew in numbers and power. 

But Mr. Campbell wisely saw that the very struggle 
itself, necessary as it had been, was breeding a gener- 
ation of fighters who loved the camp, the field and 
the carnage, but pined and became useless in peaceful 
life. He saw that the "Christian Baptist," by its 
polemical tone, had contributed to this result, and un- 
willing to continue a work which trained mere fight- 
ers and debaters, he discontinued that organ and be- 
gan the publication of another paper, the ''Millennial 
Harbinger,'' whose tone was far more constructive 
and pacific. Mr. Campbell never ceased to defend 
the truth by voice and in sermon, address and debate ; 
but the words of his later and riper years were devot- 
ed to emphasis upon the essentials of Christian cul- 
ture, such as the study of the Bible, the character and 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS 21 

functions of the church, the redemptive work of Christ, 
Christian education and the evangelization of the 
world. 

Now the trouble with the narrow, belligerent and 
bigoted people in our ranks, who are always talking 
about "the sects'' and yet are themselves giving the 
best example of the sect spirit, is that they have not 
grown with the growth of this reformation. They 
are living back in the first and necessarily warlike 
period of our history. They are not aware that the 
"Christian Baptist" is no longer published, and that 
its spirit, occasionally met in some belated freak of 
religious journalism, ought to be suffered to depart 
in peace. The "Christian Baptist," in its own day, 
meeting the issues of its generation, was a strong, 
timely and respect-compelling journal. Its small 
modern imitators, who have all its spirit of antago- 
nism with none of its breadth of view or loftiness of 
purpose, are only grotesque. 

To everything there is a season, and a time to every 
purpose under heaven ; a time to be born, and a time 
to die; a time to kill and a time to heal; a time to 
break down, and a time to build up; a time to cast 
stones, and a time to gather stones together. If we 
learn the lesson of the wise man we shall understand 



22 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

that the spirit of the iconoclast cannot abide. Elijah 
has his work, but Elisha must follow. The rubbish 
must be cleared away, but only that the house may be 
built. One cannot always be slaying the prophets of 
Baal ; and even Elijah had to be taught that it was not 
by tempest, earthquake or fire that God wrought, but by 
the still, small voice. 

We believe the Disciples are rapidly leaving behind 
them these necessary but now outworn features of 
their beginnings. We want no surrender of any 
truth. We wish no compromise with the spirit of 
sectism. We will abide no lukewarm, loose, limp and 
lavender liberalism which surrenders where it should 
defend. But we hail the growth in our ranks of a 
larger faith in the earnest and sincere purpose of all 
who bear the name of Christ to obey him and exhibit 
his spirit; we rejoice in the growing "love that think- 
eth no evil,'' and the increasing disposition manifested 
by our most successful and representative men to 
''speak the truth," and also, which is quite as essen- 
tial, to speak it "in love.'' We shall be taken serious- 
ly by the religious world just so soon, and only so 
soon, as we manifest in our conduct toward all men 
that love which, while honest and fearless, is at the 
same time the secret of harmony and the means of 
reaching the unity for which we ever pray. 



CHAPTER III. 



DO THE DISCIPLES DESIRE CHRISTIAN 

UNION? 

It has been the endeavor of these pages to consider 
certain judgments which have apparently been formed 
in the minds of our rehgious neighbors regarding us, 
and to understand, if possible, their origin and justice. 
One may not beHeve that these opinions reflect the 
character of a large and growing section of our broth- 
erhood ; but on the other hand, it is apparent that, re- 
garding some of our people, they are justified. Hav- 
ing given attention to two such sentiments, which hold 
the Disciples deserving of rebuke for being as much a 
denomination as any others and for exhibiting elements 
of narrowness and bigotry quite out of harmony with 
our plea, a third waits consideration which may be 
expressed as follows : We, who proclaim our zeal for 
Christian unity, display in a majority of cases not only 
an indifference to its practical realization in the com- 
munities where we have representation, but are actual- 

23 



24 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

ly the most reluctant to engage in efforts of a unify- 
ing sort, such as union evangehstic services, efforts 
for civic righteousness which demand the earnest co- 
operation of all Christians, fraternity and comity in 
missionary labors, both in America and on foreign 
soil, and such other forms of united effort as the spirit 
of love and fellowship would suggest. 

It is very easy for one who is criticised to resent 
the impeachment and declare the charge groundless 
and impudent, especially if he feels its injustice as ap- 
plied to himself. To some Disciples this assertion con- 
cerning us will have the appearance of a false and 
malicious misrepresentation of facts ; for of a large 
section of our people it is not true. In many localities 
where we ^re known it is conceded that we are most 
earnest in the effort to promote the unity of God's 
people by all possible means. Many of our leading 
preachers are conspicuous for their painstaking en- 
deavors to advance the harmony of .the church by 
establishing fraternal relations with all who love our 
Lord and are seeking to promote righteousness. Not 
a few of our brethren have been conspicuous in such 
united movements as Christian Endeavor, Young 
Men's Christian Association work, temperance agita- 
tion, the Bible Society, the Sunday school movement 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS. 25 

in its broader phases, and other types of service which 
emphasize the essential unity of believers in Jesus. We 
are always proud to have our brethren honored in 
the great assemblies of Christian workers. In this 
pride there are mingled sentiments of satisfaction over 
the recognition we have received in this public way and 
of joy that we are able thus visibly to contribute to the 
practical unity of the church. One is glad to believe 
that this class of our people, who thus rejoice at all 
manifestations of fraternity, is large and is growing. 
To such the charge above named will seem false and 
uncharitable, for every effort of their lives is devoted 
to the spread of the spirit of harmony and love. Nor 
are such Disciples likely to be accused of any com- 
promise upon the great principles which constitute 
our plea. They are the very ones who are known 
as ready always to give to every man that asks them 
a reason concerning the hope that is in them, yet 
with meekness and fear. In them the two elements 
of loyalty to the will of Christ and love to all who 
bear his name are fairly certain to have a balanced ex- 
pression. 

But one who is an observer of the facts can hardly 
deny that there is another section of our brotherhood, 
not separated, indeed, by any clear geographical line, 



26 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

but yet existing more conspicuously in some sections 
of the country than others, whose attitude is quite 
different upon these questions. In the view of these 
brethren the whole Christian world outside our own 
ranks is hopelessly wrong, and can only by an extra- 
ordinary stretch of charity be called Christian at all. 
There is no perception of any change on the part of 
"the sects," as they are indiscriminately termed, to- 
ward us. They are alike unscriptural, unconvinced 
and hostile, as in the days of the fathers. To co-op- 
erate with such people is disloyalty and unfaithfulness 
to Christ. So these good brethren refuse all fellow- 
ship or recognition to such, and content themselves 
with charitable hopes, not unmixed with grave doubts, 
that in the abounding mercy of God these people may 
be saved, as brands snatched from the burning. Of 
course, it need hardly be added that to such brethren 
the saving of a soul from the bondage of Methodism 
or the darkness of Presbyterianism is as much a cause 
of rejoicing as the conversion of any other sinner from 
a godless life. 

In such circles our people are likely to abstain from 
all effort in union movements. They think they can- 
not join in united evangelistic services lest they should 
seem to sanction ''unscriptural methods.'' Thus they 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS. 27 

lose their only opportunity to spread effectively the 
gospel at such times, and must content themselves 
with an ''opposition meeting/' or silence. This atti- 
tude gradually produces upon the community the im- 
pression of a clannish indifference or hostility to all 
united Christian effort, and presently we are passed 
over without notice in all plans for fraternal work 
among the churches. Thus the real tragedy of our 
cause in that locality is reached when we sink to the 
position of a narrow, suspicious sect, with all the ex- 
clusiveness and intolerance of the Plymouth Brethren 
or the ''Auld Licht'' Presbyterians of Scotland, and 
yet holding forth with the zeal of a party shibboleth the 
plea of Christian union ! 

But, it may be asked by one of these brethren, what 
would you have us do? Shall we surrender our con- 
victions, retreat from our fortifications, abandon the 
teachings of the New Testament, and all for the sake 
of fellowship with those who refuse to follow the 
teachings of Jesus ? The reply can be made in simple 
terms : 

I. Loyalty to Christ and the teachings of the New 
Testament must be as strongly emphasized as ever. 
No man is called upon nor can be permitted to sur- 
render his convictions regarding the Savior and the 



28 OUR PLEA FOB UNION 

Scriptures. It is the very principle of Protestantism 
and of Christianity that every man must be persuaded 
in his own mind, and must follow the teachings of 
the Lord as he understands them, using his best en- 
deavors to come to their true meaning. 

2. While he demands the right of private judg- 
ment for himself, he must concede it to others. He 
has no right to doubt that other Christians, who 
hold different views from his own, have either in- 
herited them or absorbed them from their environ- 
ment or reached them by earnest study. Believing 
these opinions to vary from the truth at certain points 
he may hope to be able, working in the spirit of love, 
to win them to what he believes the larger and truer 
view. But in no ordinary case has he the right to 
doubt their sincerity or impugn their loyalty to 
Christ. He may, on reflection, discover that their 
exhibition of the mind of the Master in their daily 
life more than outweighs his own correctness of view 
on Biblical teachings. 

3. It is unnecessary that men should wait for 
agreement upon all points of Christian teaching before 
they co-operate in actual service for Christ. There are 
problems which lie at the door of every community in 
whose solution Christians of every communion should 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS. 29 

find it a satisfaction to unite. The relation of a group 
of Disciples in a given town or city to a neighboring 
Baptist, Methodist or Congregational church must 
necessarily be closer than to any congregation of Dis- 
ciples in another town or ward. Why not take up the 
task of unity right there in that local circle and pro- 
mote its realization by such an attitude of love and 
fellowship as will persuade all that we are serious 
in our plea for the unity of God's people and believe 
in its practicability? The apparent disposition of the 
Disciples in many places is that of people who neither 
believe in the possibility of union nor care to exert 
themselves to secure its realization. Why not change 
all this by demonstrating, in the spirit of loyalty to 
Christ and of love to all who believe in him, the ease 
with which it may be promoted, if not actually real- 
ized? 

4. The methods by which this may be brought 
about are, among others, these : Exchange of preach- 
ers in the regular services ; union evangelistic services, 
in which the whole Gospel shall be proclaimed, but in 
a spirit of love which shall disarm all antagonism. 
Great interests obliterate small antipathies. A com- 
munity aroused to a passion of earnestness over the 
salvation of men will not stop to debate subordinate 



80 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

questions, especially where Holy Scripture * is plain. 
Then union teachers' meetings, lectureships or classes 
for Bible study, and civic reforms of all kinds in which 
the church best shows her interest in the welfare of 
men. These are not mere ideals, but realities capable 
of actual accomplishment — indeed, going on under 
our very eyes. Some of our churches are promoting 
this very sort of Christian union to-day, with no loss 
of testimony as to the essentials of Gospel obedience. 
Why should not all our people be leaders in this work? 

5. Christian unity will be realized by such methods 
of actual co-operation, and not by means of platforms, 
pacts and agreements formed by denominational repre- 
sentatives in solemn conference. 

6. The task of the new century for the Disciples 
of Christ is to assist in the practical realization of 
Christian union. We have two ways open before us. 
One is that of a growing denomination, with all its 
machinery and its particular testimony. In that case 
we grow for a few years longer as we have done re- 
cently; then we lose the vital impulses of our youth 
and aggressiveness ; we sink into- a mere denom- 
ination like the rest, and the Christian world hurries 
past us to more important issues. We have had our 
reward, like the Pharisees. We have saved our life 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS. 

denominationally, but have lost it in reality. In future 
years the historian will write, ''There was another de- 
nomination in that period, called,'' etc. On the other 
hand, we may choose to take up seriously the problem 
of Christian unity with which we started, and which, 
for purposes of increasing our own ranks, we appear 
to many to have abandoned. To the promotion of this 
enterprise we may commit ourselves with unreserved 
enthusiasm, being willing to give up anything which 
stands in the way of its realization. We may have to 
give up ourselves, our denominational standing, our 
machinery, and merge ourselves in the great united 
Church of Christ. We shall not have to give up a sin- 
gle principle for which we have contended, but only 
our divisive attitude. By this means we lose ourselves, 
but we save our plea, and thus ourselves, in the larg- 
est way. 



CHAPTER IV. 



DO WE WISH APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY 
RESTORED? 

Since the day when Luther nailed his theses to the 
door of the castle-church at Wittenberg, the air has 
been full of the word ^'Reformation." The task which 
Wiclif, Hus and Savonarola had undertaken within 
the Church of Rome was seen to be impossible. The 
effort to remake the old was given up, or put beyond 
consideration when the very forces which might have 
wrought reform broke out of the old shell and started 
another movement. The Protestants, careless of mere 
formal continuity of ecclesiastical orders, harked back 
in spirit to the nobler days of the early church. This 
break with the historic organization which had usurped 
the functions of the body of Christ was so startling an 
event that all Europe was compelled to take sides. Soon 
the idea of Reformation was in the air. Too late the 
Church of Rome saw the necessity of clearing her 
skirts of charges which were everywhere being lodged 



34 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

against her. Responding to this demand, she under- 
took the "counter Reformation/' in which Loyola and 
his fellow Jesuits were the leaders. Meantime the 
great reformatory movement started by Luther was 
breaking up under the strongly-marked individualism 
of a period when for the first time the passion for re- 
ligious freedom could be indulged, and when the 
authority of'the church was denied. Every man was 
at liberty to proclaim his own convictions, and a grow- 
ing spirit of separatism brooded over the deep. This 
was far better — evil as it was — than the old dead uni- 
formity of Romanism; but it was a phase of things 
that could not abide. Yet it served to make conspicu- 
ous in the Christian vocabulary the word "Reforma- 
tion." Every denomination which has started since 
the Lutheran revolt took its stand upon some neglect- 
ed element of Christian teaching or life, and insisted 
upon "Reform.'' 

It was the peculiarity of the fathers of this move- 
ment v/ith which we are connected that they broke 
with this tradition at one point, and while they indeed 
spoke of their work as a reformation, the "current 
Reformation" and the like, they boldly advocated the 
"Restoration" of the apostolic church. Only by a re- 
turn to the Church of Christ of the first century did 



AISfD THE PRESENT CRISIS. 35 

they consider it possible to reach the foundations of 
belief and secure the lost unity and vitality of the body 
of Christ. Therefore the slogans ''Back to the Apos- 
tles/* "Back to Christ'' have been the watchwords of 
the Disciples from the first, and the restoration of 
apostolic Christianity their endeavor. 

But precisely at this point arises one of those re- 
joinders from without, which it seems wise to con- 
sider with patience. The man who looks with an im- 
partial eye upon our progress and hears our pronounce- 
ments of purpose is likely to say — as many are actu- 
ally saying of us in these days: 'The restoration of 
the conditions prevailing in the apostolic churches is 
both undesirable and impossible." No one, he would 
say, wishes to go back to the faulty and imperfect 
church life of the first century. The plane of Christian 
living in our time is much higher than that of the 
church membership in Corinth, Ephesus, Galatia and 
Rome. Moreover, the movement of the church is for- 
ward, not backward. The real cry of the church should 
be "Forward to Christ," not "Back to Christ," for our 
Leader is ever before us. 

There is no word of this comment with which 
every intelligent Disciple does not agree. To desire 
to go back to the days when the church was first tak- 



36 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

ing form, with materials gathered from Judaism and 
Paganism with all the prejudices and limitations of 
view, to say nothing of more degrading manifesta- 
tions of the old life, still clinging to those who were 
quite sincere in their devotion to Christ, would be to 
wish a return from the strength and wisdom of man- 
hood to the weakness and ignorance of the child. The 
church has been all too slowly disengaging herself 
from the enwrapping Judaism and Paganism of the 
past to wish to return to a day when they constituted 
the almost total environment of her life. 

But the critic is in error in supposing that this is 
what the Disciples have proposed. There may have 
been those who, in the enthusiasm of their preaching, 
were not concerned to discriminate as to their exact 
meaning, and who therefore left their hearers in doubt 
as to the precise content of Ihe words, '^Restoration 
of Primitive Christianity," and the cry "Back to 
Christ." Certainly the fathers never meant to teach 
the desirability of restoring the actual conditions pre- 
vailing in the primitive churches. That would imply 
the supposition that the faulty type of Christian con- 
duct observed in the churches to whom Paul wrote; 
and the limitations of Christian knowledge and activ- 
ity in an age when the believing community was large- 



ANV THE PRESENT CRISIS. 37 

ly un resourceful in the very elements which produce 
most effective Christian service, were desirable fea- 
tures for perpetuation. One's heart warms, indeed, 
as he finds in the pages of the New Testament con- 
spicuous instances of earnestness, fidelity and hero- 
ism on the part, not only of individuals, but groups of 
Christians. But the churches in general filled the 
Apostles with grave disquietude, by reason of the ever- 
clinging tendencies of their former lives; and noth- 
ing but an optimism which recognized fully the saving 
grace of Christ could have heartened these great ser- 
vants of God for their tasks. 

It is not the church life of the primitive years to 
which the Disciples have sought to point the Chris- 
tian world, but to the ideals of that church as contained 
in the teachings of the Master and his Apostles. 
Above the heads of the imperfect Christians of Cor- 
inth and Rome Paul saw the glowing vision of the 
ideal church — the glorious church of the future — actu- 
ally realized, when the limitations and faults which he 
saw in the brethren of his own day should be left be- 
hind, and the assembly of the first-born whose names 
are written in Heaven, should appear as the represen- 
tative of Christ in the world, without spot or wrinkle 
or any such thing — a church prepared, militant and 



88 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

watchful, fair as the sun, clear as the moon, and ter- 
rible as an army with banners. It is this ideal church 
as outlined in the Christian records to which we dfrect 
our thought, with its teachings as to the great verities 
essential to human happiness and eternal well-being; 
its simple yet symbolic and impressive ordinances, 
few in number, yet eloquently speaking of those deep- 
est mysteries of spiritual experience — ^birth into the 
likeness of the Lord, and nourishment by the imparta- 
tion of his life — its sense of joy and freedom in em- 
ploying all the forces of being in the rewarding and 
unrestrained service of the common Master, and its 
spirit of love which is the Spirit of Christ, whose pres- 
ence proves likeness to him, and is the surest — nay, 
the only — test of Christian character. 

The cry "Back to Christ" is therefore not a note of 
retreat. It is the command to go forward to the 
perfect attainment of the Christian ideal; an ideal, 
however, which was revealed for the first time in the 
historic experiences of the apostolic century. Yet 
that church of the first age, that ideal church, floats 
above the world to-day as truly as then. Indeed, it is 
nearer to us than it was to the early Christians, for 
it is the city of God, the New Jerusalem, coming down, 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS. 39 

ever descending, becoming more capable of realization 
as Ihe church grows in likeness to her Lord. 

"The one far off, divine event 

To which the whole creation moves," 

is nothing less than the blending of this heavenly ideal 
with the consummated human reality, because there is 
no longer a difference. 

It is because the Disciples believe that this apos- 
tolic ideal is capable of realization, and that as the 
visible church adjusts itself to the invisible pattern 
its true functions may be more fully realized, its true 
power exercised and its universal fellowship of love 
enjoyed, that they spell out Apostolic Christianity in 
large letters, and seek to hasten the day when all shall 
build on the one divine foundation of Apostles and 
Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner 
stone. 



CHAPTER V. 



WHAT DO WE MORE THAN OTHERS? 

It is probable that a certain general consent may be 
secured among the Disciples to the statement that we 
are not seeking to restore the actual conditions pre- 
vailing among the New Testament churches, but 
rather to call attention to that apostolic ideal, which 
first took form in the teachings of Jesus. To the 
world of the first century that ideal was absolutely 
new, and indeed incapable of instant realization. It 
is plain that the church of the nineteenth century has 
not yet realized it, but that, on the whole, it has come 
much closer to its embodiment in actual practice than 
was seen in any previous period. Nevertheless, though 
the distance between apostolic teaching and Christian 
practice has lessened steadily during the centuries, 
there still remains much to be done in completing the 
identification of the actual with the ideal as set forth 

41 



42 OCR PLEA FOR UNION 

in the teachings of the Lord, and reported unto us 
by them that heard him. 

Every movement in the church has been an effort 
to restore some lost or neglected element of the faith. 
No body of Christian people has ever deliberately set 
itself to a departure from the teachings of the Gospel. 
But these departures have come in through the loss of 
vision, the failure of enthusiasm, the cooling of love. 
Hence the need of reformations, and the entire path- 
way of the church is marked by the memorials of such 
efforts, each effective in its own way, and to a great 
or less degree. When the present movement started, 
now known historically as the Christian Church, or the 
Disciples of Christ, its platform was so startling, and 
its ambition so great that it could not fail to attract at- 
tention. Its plea was the return, not to the reforma- 
tion, nor to the church of the middle ages, nor even to 
the church fathers of the second and third centuries, 
but to the Christ and his first witnesses. With Profes- 
sor Blackie, the pioneers of this effort, said : "We have 
no objection to a return to the apostolic fathers ; but 
why stop with them when one can go back to the 
grandfathers, the apostles themselves?" They were 
content with nothing less than this. To restore the 
Christian ideals of the first days was their endeavor. 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS. 43 

The apostolic teachings, the apostolic ordinances and 
the apostolic spirit became the objects of their con- 
templation, and the restoration of these to supremacy 
their hope. From these aims the Disciples have never 
departed ; for them they still contend. 

But once more we must consider what our friends 
have to say of this high enterprise, and must be con- 
tent to learn wisdom at their lips, if indeed upon re- 
flection they appear to be right. For they are say- 
ing, not a few of them, that if it be understood that 
we seek the restoration of the ideals of the apostolic 
church, and not the actual conditions of the first cen- 
tury, we can hardly claim to be more anxious to see 
this accomplished than are our religious neighbors 
That they as sincerely seek to be obedient to Christ as 
do we, and that in following the leadings of the Spirit 
into the possession of the holy fruits of Christian 
character, it often appears that the advantage is with 
others, even some of the sects and denominations 
whom we denounce, rather than with us. That if an 
earnest effort to accomplish the will of our Lord be the 
test of a people, we have nothing whereof to boast 
above others ; and that the commendation upon faith- 
ful effort to realize the true and essential things of 
Christian life rather than the small and inconsequen- 



44 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

tial ends of a legal correctness, might rest upon some 
of those outside our circle rather than upon ourselves. 
In a word, that considering the greatness of our claim 
to return from the pools in the plain to their primal 
source in the flowing streams from Lebanon, the Mas- 
ter might well say to us, as to those of old, ''What do 
ye more than others?" We have assumed a position 
which is like a city set upon a hill. Our claims are so 
great that if we do not give them a large measure of 
embodiment they appear to be only the bombastic and 
pretentious boastings of egotists. 

Frankly let us say then that it is a source of satis- 
faction to us to find so much of the spirit of Christ 
abroad in his church. The old antagonisms and 
hatreds are disappearing. Much of the work to which 
the Disciples set themselves at the first has been 
accomplished. 

I. The reverence for human creeds has well-nigh 
passed forever. Many hold them as historic testi- 
monies which they believe to have served an excellent 
purpose, and which deserve to be kept as land-marks ; 
but the church as a whole has little use for credal 
statements. It once took courage to denounce hu- 
man formulations of this character. He who wastes 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS. 45 

his time in the exercise today is needlessly insulting 
a dead antagonist. 

2. The lordship of Jesus was a great watchword 
with the fathers. To call attention to his authority, 
rather than that of councils, synods and symbols 
was the effort of the primal days of this reformation. 
It was a word supremely needed in that time. Men 
were listening to Moses, Elijah, Ezra, Augustine, 
Luther, Calvin, Wesley, Williams and Robinson 
rather than to him. It was the task of the pioneers 
to ascend once more the mount of vision and still 
the strife of tongues among their religious contem- 
poraries, while the voice from the cloud proclaimed, 
''This is my beloved Son ; hear ye him.'' But in the 
years that have passed since that time this plea has 
become a commonplace of Christian teaching. The 
will of our Lord is studied with loving reverence 
by men of every communion in the effort to follow 
him in complete surrender. ''Lord, what will thou 
have me to do?" is the passionate cry of thousands 
of every name. The world has never seen so mar- 
velous an effort to translate the purposes of Jesus 
into human life as within a decade, and this by all 
the churches. It is idle to deny this. Nor will it 
do to say that because a man has not been immersed 



46 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

all his earnest service goes for naught. Baptism is 
an act of loving obedience, which no one who under- 
stands its significance will decline to observe or de- 
sire to omit. But not all have had the same training, 
and, say what we will, not all who read the New 
Testament with apparent candor and willingness to 
be led into all the truth, understand their duty as 
it seems plain to us. Shall we therefore fail to dis- 
cern in them, when it is present as often as it is, that 
deeper and truer test of Christian life, a Christlike 
character, and the Holy Spirit as an indwelling pres- 
ence, giving victory over sin, and producing its appro- 
priate fruit? 

These two facts, the decay of loyalty to human 
creeds and the growth of a larger loyalty to Christ, 
as seen in a truer recognition of his authority, are wit- 
nessed in all the churches about us. That we have 
had a part in promoting these ends let us believe, with 
a certain reserve, and a great and deep shame that 
we have not done more. There was, perhaps, a 
certain priority in our efforts to attain these ends, 
but we alone have not brought even their present 
measure of expression to pass. 

What then do we more than others? What have 
we that the rest have not, if the cry against creeds 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS. 47 

is either become unnecessary or is shared by all; if 
the Lordship and authority of Jesus are lovingly rec- 
ognized by all, and, in the deeper meaning of loy- 
alty, by some perhaps more than by us; if Christian 
unity is regarded as desirable by all and is to some 
extent preached by all, as it was not thought of in 
the days of the fathers; if reverence for the Bible is 
growing in company with its more earnest study? 
Is our place already gone? Has our testimony be- 
come useless ? Certainly not. Never more than now 
were the principles for which we stand needed. There 
remains yet much land to be possessed. Christian 
unity has not yet come to pass, nor can it, save upon 
the apostolic basis. But while we are thus giving to 
the world our testimony with no uncertain voice and 
thereby fixing in increasing measure the eyes of men 
upon us, we must see to it that we look out the best 
features of our brethren of other communions foi 
contemplation and comment, not the worst; that we 
recognize the great strides that have been made in 
all the churches toward the ends we have sought; 
that we claim for this enterprise of ours only that 
modest credit which the facts warrant; and that, 
above all, we show ourselves an example to the be- 
lievers in faith, in charity, in patience, in love and 
in purity. 



CHAPTER VI. 



WHAT CONSTITUTES A SECTARIAN 
ATTITUDE? 

A body of people, gathered for a definite religious 
purpose and maintaining a consistent and growing 
organization through a given period, is not neces- 
sarily a sect, or even a denomination. It may be a 
band of earnest Christians laboring to promote a 
desirable end, and possessing all the elements of a 
complete and independent organism, and yet not be 
a sect. No one would claim that the Christian En- 
deavor movement is a sect. It is quite possible to 
see how other and similar societies, coming into be- 
ing later on, imitating its methods and seeking to 
enter into competition with it through fear of its 
influence, might be sectarian and partisan in their 
nature; but Christian Endeavor is not such. The 
same thing* may be said of the Young Men's Chris- 
tian Association. It is a movement within the church 
for the accomplishment of a definite and needed ob- 

49 



50 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

ject. The Woman's Christian Temperance Union is 
of similar character. All these, and other agencies, 
are Christian, and therefore within the church as 
special manifestations of its life and purpose. It is 
of course possible that at times they may manifest, 
either locally or in the aggregate, partisan and nar- 
row tendencies ; but this will probably be excep- 
tional. 

It is, therefore, possible to see how the Disciples 
of Christ are not necessarily a sect or even a de- 
nomination merely because they have a special and 
somewhat separate form within the church. They 
have on hand an enterprise to which they wish to 
call the attention of the entire church, and which is 
as essential to the well-being of the body of Christ 
as the work of any such association as has been 
named above. An idea needs an organization to 
make it effective. Christianity needs the church to 
give it visible embodiment and power. A spirit with- 
out a body is a ghost. The Disciples need make no 
apology for their separate existence so long as their 
mission is unaccomplished. 

The moment their plea for Christian unity be- 
comes eflfective throughout the church and their ef- 
forts realize success, that moment their separate ex- 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS. 51 

istence becomes no longer necessary, and if per- 
petuated beyond that time would be an obstruction 
to the progress of that unity, a useless and imperti- 
ru'.nt survival of a body whose ends were accom- 
pHshed, and which ought to disappear. The per- 
sistence of the Disciples in a separate organizaton 
after the general acceptance of the principles for 
which they plead would be as meaningless and illog- 
ical as the survival of anti-slavery societies in our 
own time, or the perpetuation of anti-saloon leagues 
after the saloon shall have disappeared. 

On the other hand, it is easy to see how a move- 
ment in the church can have the appearance and 
produce the impression of being a denomination and 
a sect. Such is always the case when it enters the 
field as a rival to the other Christian forces in a com- 
munity, thrives at their expense, antagonizes them 
wherever possible, and settles down to secure a per- 
manent and assured foothold as a church with a 
platform to which it demands submission, excluding 
from its fellowship and consideration all who refuse 
such adherence. Now the Disciples of Christ may 
occupy either one of these positions; in fact, in 
some localities the one impression is made, and in 
some the other. It is to be feared that the second 



52 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

attitude is more common than the first. It is certain 
that our growth has brought us to the point where 
we must deliberately choose between the two types of 
influence. There was a time when our work was 
obscure ; today it is no longer done in a corner. We 
are like a city set on a hill. We are soon to be 
known and read of all men. These are moments of 
crisis, and it is no less important because many of 
our people are apparently indifferent to it. That very 
attitude of indifference has in its 'effects all the im- 
portance of a deliberate choice, and the result is a 
quiet and steady drifting in the direction of the nar- 
row and sectarian position. 

An example or two may suggest themselves as 
likely to occur, or perhaps as actually occurring. In 
a city of 5,000 inhabitants, with twelve churches, 
representing the various denominations, and pro- 
viding in a fairly competent manner for the religious 
life of the community, the Disciples have no congre- 
gation. In spite of the fact that there are many 
cities of much greater size in the same state, in 
which large portions of the population are unreached 
by Christian influences of any sort, this amply pro- 
vided and somewhat over-churched town is invaded — 
a church is established, proselytes are eagerly sought 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS. 58 

from the churches already at work there, and a 
spirit of antagonism, the very opposite of that of 
Christian unity, is generated. What is the impres- 
sion made upon that community by such procedure ? 
Instead of seeking a neglected field, of which there 
are plenty, where ignorance of the Gospel vies with 
infidelity, and atheism in darkening the souls of men, 
every principle of economical administration and 
Christian courtesy is violated by intrusion upon a 
field already occupied by forces which only a per- 
sistent bigotry would deny to be Christian. Let us 
agree that the Gospel is not preached there as we 
believe it should be preached ; nevertheless, since the 
field is occupied, and the Gospel preached — even in 
an imperfect manner — would it not be better to seek 
the really needy places? And would not our plea 
of Christian unity be taken more seriously if we were 
more wise and appreciative of the good others are 
seeking to do? 

If it be suggested that in such a city there might be 
already a considerable number of Disciples not yet or- 
ganized into a congregation, whom the above sugges- 
tion would deprive of a church home, the answer 
would at once commend itself to all that this very fact 
would prove that the town was not ''amply provided" 



54 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

with church facilities^ and the conditions would there- 
fore be of a different sort. Where, however, the num- 
ber of such believers is small, one of two courses must 
present itself. The first will be that of uniting with 
that body of Christians which most nearly complies 
with the teachings of the Scripture as understood by 
such seekers after a church home. The duty and 
privilege of Christian fellowship cannot be over-esti- 
mated. To be deprived of such a home is a misfor- 
tune few Christians will suffer unless the reasons are 
imperative. Moreover the privilege of free testimony 
to the teachings of the Bible is always enjoyed, no 
matter what the church may be. To those who would 
decline to associate themselves with any congregation 
not of our own order, when this offers the only means 
of Christian fellowship, the reminder needs to be 
brought that this was the very opportunity, and the 
only opportunity, the fathers sought. They were mem- 
bers of churches with whose attitude they did not 
agree, yet they wished not to leave but only to bear 
witness. We know of instances in which a whole con- 
gregation has been leavened by the union spirit 
through the efforts of one of our brethren who found 
it the only available church home. The second course 
open to one in the position named is that which re- 



\ 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS, 55 

mains when his conscience forbids him to enter the 
fellowship of any congregation not holding the truth 
as proclaimed by us. Such an attitude, held in obedi- 
ence to conviction, should be respected, even if one 
believed the view a mistaken one. The clear duty, 
however, of such a Disciple would be to abide in sep- 
arate loyalty to his views till such time as modifications 
in existing organizations made it possible for him to 
unite conscientiously with a church already active, or 
the growing number of his brethren, through arrivals 
or through his own efforts, made advisable the forma- 
tion of a group of Disciples into a congregation. 

Another case may be instanced. On the missionary 
map of the world certain assignments of territory 
have been made for many years by representatives 
of all Christian forces, in the interests of economy 
and good fellowship. No one religious body can 
do justice to the needs of the entire world, and so 
this agreement has been reached, which, though not 
a hard and fast law, is recognized and generally ob- 
served. The vast stretches of unevangelized territory 
leave plenty of room for any newcomers in the field. 
Now suppose that in a region long occupied by one 
of the great Christian communions, whose work has 
been marked by great earnestness and success, there 



66 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

should come a company of men representing the 
Disciples. They ignore entirely the compact which 
has guided the Christian forces hitherto. They dis- 
regard all rules of comity and courtesy. They deem 
it as much their duty to convert the members of the 
rival Christian organization to their view as to save 
the heathen, and actually spend the most of their time 
in this work. They refuse all fraternal recognition 
to members of the earlier Christian body, whose 
legitimate bounds they have invaded, and upon ad- 
vices from like-minded people in America they cen- 
sure those of their own number who venture upon 
any association with such. And all this with the plea 
of apostolic Christianity and Christian union on their 
lips ! What can be the estimate of us formed by our 
Christian neighbobrs who observe such conduct on 
our part? Could there be any more striking illus- 
tration of the sect spirit, which is the spirit of anti- 
Christ? Nor are these mere fancy sketches. Many 
know them to be true to facts. Fortunately they 
represent only individual narrowness, and not the 
policy of any of our missionary boards, to which such 
conduct on the part of any of their representatives 
can only bring shame and grief of heart. The only 
honorable thing in such cases is to prove our Chris- 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS. 57 

tian spirit and real desire for the unity of God's peo- 
ple by withdrawing from such unrighteously invaded 
fields as soon as possible. 

Paul, when imprisoned at Rome, learned of cer- 
tain men who were preaching Christ out of strife 
and envy, thinking to bring upon him affliction in 
his bonds. And though he knew their gospel to be 
incomplete and fragmentary, he exclaimed, with a 
noble faith in the saving power of Christ, however 
presented, "What, then, does it matter? Only this, 
that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, 
Christ is preached; and therein I rejoice, yea, and 
will rejoice/' More of the Apostle's fine tolerance is 
needed by us in our estimate of the work of our 
Christian neighbors, whose zeal for Christ we cannot 
question, and whose Christian spirit might well put 
some of us to shame. Well may we take thought 
for the banishment from our work of these tokens 
of the sectarian attitude which vitiate, wherever they 
are manifested, not only our plea for union, but even 
our claim to be Christians. 



CHAPTER VIL 



A HISTORIC INSTANCE. 

The question is likely to be asked, How can a peo- 
ple so band themselves together as to give effective 
witness to a needed principle of Christian teaching 
without at the same time incurring the danger of be- 
coming a denomination or a sect? If it is true that 
a neglected element of our holy faith can only be 
brought to the attention of the church universal by a 
body of people standing for its advocacy, how is that 
body to be saved from the disaster of degenerating 
into a mere party, with the selfish aims and efforts of 
a separate and rival body of Christians ? Speaking of 
the particular problem before us as a people, there 
are not a few Disciples who frankly accept the posi- 
tion of a distinct denomination, and glory in the fact. 
They affirm that we are able to "take the field," by 
which they seem to mean that with our aggressive- 
ness and clear-cut pronouncement upon the elements 

- 59 



60 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

of the Gospel, we can rapidly reach the front rank 
among the denominations, and perhaps absorb or 
drive out of the field some of our religious neighbors. 
There seems to be little disposition to believe that the 
other religious bodies will come to us. There was a 
time when this was confidently affirmed. But the 
most sanguine of our brethren are becoming con- 
vinced that we can hardly expect the Christian world, 
when it comes to the point of abandoning denomina- 
tionalism, as it surely will, to join a people possessing 
so many of the denominational marks as do we. Be- 
fore that day arrives we^ too, shall face the necessity 
of giving up our separatism ; and the greatest danger 
appears to be that we shall manifest as great reluct- 
ance as the rest. 

But is it possible to find an example in point, an 
instance of a people united in the eflfort to bring the 
entire church to its duty upon a great but neglected 
truth of the faith, who at the same time sought no 
mere denominational place, and when their task was 
accomplished, were content to disappear? It is cer- 
tain that several instances of the sort could be cited. 
One must suffice. 

In the early part of the eighteenth century, when 
religious life had notably declined in Europe, and men 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS. 61 

were wondering if the church had not lost forever its 
power; when the sermons in English churches were 
no more charged with Christian fervor than as though 
they were pagan orations; when continental Europe 
was listening to the soothing tones of smooth and 
easy moralists, the offspring of the school of Voltaire, 
and before the Wesleys and Whitefield had risen to 
speak in trumpet tones to a slumbering church, there 
grew up m' a small district in Saxony a people with 
a living faith and a vital testimony. They were a 
remnant of the followers of John Hus, and had been 
expelled from Bohemia and Moravia in 1627. They 
settled in Herrnhut in 1722. Led by Count 
Zinzendorf, a noble who was willing and zealous to 
devote himself and his possessions to the service of 
Christ, they began in a quiet manner by seeking to 
realize for themselves a deeper religious life. They 
wished to speak with God, that they might be fitted 
to speak for him. Their eagerness and consecration 
soon attracted kindred spirits from far and near, 
though they were modest to a degree in sounding 
a trumpet. John Wesley, then a young man, 
went over from England and lived with them for a 
rime, and his later life showed constant marks of the 
association. But the Moravians were not intent upon 



62 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

forming a church. They were convinced that the 
two things the Christian world needed were larger 
spiritual life and a deep concern for foreign missions, 
and they believed that the two purposes were so 
related that the one could not be separated from the 
other. Wherever men had the spirit of Christ, they 
affirmed, foreign missions would engage their atten- 
tion. Wherever missions were zealously prosecuted, 
there spiritual life was the result both in the home 
and foreign field. They therefore threw themselves 
with unreserved enthusiasm into the propaganda. 
They went in large numbers to the ends of the earth 
to proclaim the Gospel. They poured out their 
scanty means in astonishing measure for the mission- 
ary cause. They built ships and sent them laden 
with preachers and Bibles into far lands. Their one 
cry was, 'The Gospel for all nations.'' They were 
few in numbers, but mighty in faith. They knew what 
it was even to be persecuted for righteousness' sake. 
Yet in much proof of affliction the abundance of their 
joy and their deep poverty abounded into the riches 
of their liberality, for, according to their power, yea 
and beyond their power, they gave of their own 
accord. This was easy to explain, for first they gave 
their own selves unto the Lord. Such conduct could 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS 63 

not fail to attract the notice of the entire church. The 
needs of the foreign field began to call loudly to all. 
Then came the wonderful missionary revival, headed 
by Carey, Mofifett, Judson, and the rest of those 
pioneers whose names are written in heaven. Mean- 
time the Moravians grew and spread through the 
world. But everywhere they had a single testimony, 
"The Gospel for all nations.'' They grew apparently 
only that they might have voice to speak and hand 
to labor. When the church began to awaken to its 
great responsibility, and all the communions were full 
of tongues that spoke loudly of the common need, 
the Moravians began to diminish in numbers. Their 
task was no longer special. The Church of Christ 
had listened to the call, and was arising in its 
strength. Much land yet remained to be possessed, 
but the churches could be trusted to conquer it in the 
name of the Lord. The spirit of missions, which at 
the first, but for them, would have been only a senti- 
ment, was now finding embodiment on all sides. For 
this much of the credit was due the Moravians, but 
they never demanded it. It was enough to see the 
work advancing. There was no reason why a partic- 
ular body should be kept up to carry forward the 
task which all now were willing to share. Like Simeon 



64 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

of old, they received with jby the sign of the new day 
and cried, ''Now, Lord, lettest thou thy servant de- 
part in peace according to thy word, for mine eyes 
have seen thy salvation." The Moravians today are 
a disappearing brotherhood. Now and then one 
comes upon a congregation, perpetuated rather by 
denominational pride than to accomplish a great task. 
Wherever they are found they are still earnest advo- 
cates of foreign missions. But their testimony has 
lost its special force, their work is ended, and the 
noblest spirits of that historic movement could not 
ask a more fitting consummation to their task than 
that the body of their brethren and followers should 
be absorbed into the great Church of Christ, which has 
now caught the motto from their lips and is pro- 
claiming with the zeal of those stout and lonely cham- 
pions of missions, 'The Gospel for all nations." 

Is not this an instance in point? The Disciples of 
Christ have a testimony as vital to the final welfare of 
the church as had the Moravians. At the first they 
were the lonely and devoted champions of the cause 
of Christian unity. Now the Christian world is tak- 
ing up the cry, "That they all may be one." It is 
not ours to claim the credit for this alone. God knows 
the truth and will reward us as we merit. Nor is the 



A^D THE PRESENT CRISIS. 65 

cause of unity yet sufficiently advanced to permit us 
to give up our task. It may take much longer time 
than we have yet regarded necessary to accomplish 
this purpose. Many are yet to be convinced that sec- 
tarianism is inexpedient and sinful. Many more are 
unprepared as yet to admit that Christian unity is 
practicable. The method of its accomplishment 
seems obscure. It must be our work to enforce this 
plea, to prove its desirability, and most of all to il- 
lustrate its method. This our entire history has pre- 
pared us to do. We have come to the Kingdom for 
such a time as this. The first step is the cultivation of 
the spirit of fellowship. A common aim must pre- 
cede a common organization. Unity comes before 
union. The matter of final and incorporating coales- 
cence can only develop from a consciousness that 
there is no longer divergence of belief or practice 
which would prevent complete fellowship. We need 
not concern ourselves with the problem of the form 
church union will ultimately take. The spirit of love 
and loyalty will form for itself a body suited to its 
needs. Our task is more immediate and definite. It 
is to make practical all elements of unity which lie 
within reach at this moment. But the outcome we 
cannot doubt. The Savior's prayer will yet be an- 



66 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

swered, the apostolic dream will yet be realized, and 
if the separateness which has been thrust upon us 
needs to be given up to aid in this result, we can 
not hesitate. The sacrifice we ask of others we must 
be prepared to make ourselves. If all denominational 
separatism is to be abandoned, may not even that 
organization which we have acquired thus far in the 
prosecution of the work of Christ need to be laid 
aside in order that the very purpose of our move- 
ment may be achieved? The united church will not 
be our church, but the church of Christ, including all 
who follow him, drawn into united service by the need 
of oneness, which we have constantly proclaimed. We 
shall not lose, but rather find ourselves by thus aban- 
doning what seems our corporate life. The only 
way in which life can be saved in the Kingdom of 
God is by giving it freely for the highest ends. When 
we lose ourselves for the sake of uniting all, we save 
ourselves in the supreme sense. This time may still 
be distant, but the disposition will fix the curve of 
our movement. We have the same love of our his- 
tory and brotherhood that we see in others for their 
own. To give up this separate existence for the sake 
even of our self-realization when visible union be- 
comes possible, may be as difficult for us as for them. 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS, 67 

But when that time comes, and the forces of right- 
eousness are moving toward each other with friendly 
air and desire for union, upon that foundation which 
alone is capable of sustaining such a universal fellow- 
ship of believers, may we be great and unselfish, wise 
and discerning enough to say, like Simeon of old, 
like the Moravians of later days, ''Now, Lord, lettest 
thou thy servant depart in peace ; for mine eyes have 
seen thy salvation." 



CHAPTER VIIL 



THE TWO PATHS. 

There are three periods in the history of any move- 
ment that comes to prominence as the promoter of an 
idea. There is first the period of its inception and 
early growth, when it first takes form as a statement 
of truth, and makes its appeal for support. It may 
have no vitality, and therefore attract no advocates 
beyond a limited circle. In that case its first period is 
its last. But if it lives and begins to find friends, it 
grows with more or less rapidity, gathering strength 
as it advances till a considerable body of representa- 
tives stands ready to defend ^nd propagate it. During 
this period the influence of the original idea is strong, 
and those who enter the circle are likely to be at- 
tracted by the dominant principle. The mere matter of 
forming an organization is secondary. Nobody thinks 
as far as that. A few people have seized upon a truth 
which they are sure the rest should recognize, and they 

69 



70 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

propose to press it to acceptance. The fact of separate 
existence is neither invited nor expected. There is the 
hope that all men will presently accept with grateful 
hearts the new truth presented. 

^ ^m^ 

But time goes on, and the world has not accepted =if" " 
the teaching. Yet its advocates have become more j 
numerous, and presently the thought of a certain sep- 
arateness and strength of organization grows up. 
Then comes most naturally the passion for growth. 
The development of the organism is the prevailing 
concern. This is accomplished by the uplifting of the 
watchwords with which the movement started, but in 
the conduct of the most active and zealous represen- 
tatives there may be detected a growing zeal for the 
organization as such, and a lessening of emphasis upon 
the first purposes of the enterprise. This does 'not 
mean that the familiar rallying cries will be omitted. 
That would be impossible if success is to be achieved. 
But nevertheless there is apparent to the careful ob- 
server a loss of the early ideals in the passion for num- 
bers and power. In this period may be seen examples 
of remarkable activity on the part of men whose whole 
purpose is that of building up the organization, who at 
the same time have apparently lost wholly, or never 
possessed, the dominant thought of the movement, but 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS. 71 

have only a clan or party loyalty, and repeat the watch- 
words with a meaning only intelligible from their nar- 
row and partisan point of view. There will indeed be 
many men of sincere and noble purpose who keep 
fresh in their hearts the ideals of the first days, but 
it is the danger of this second period that the organi- 
zation will forget all but its strife for success, and 
in its efifort to save itself, it will lose its better life. 

Then comes the third and last period. The beginning 
of that era is a moment of critical importance. Two 
paths are open; two possibilities offer themselves. 
Between these there must be a choice. Even where 
the crisis is not perceived and the two ways not noticed, 
the choice is always deliberately made. It is possible, 
first, to take inventory of the progress made thus far, 
to ask what were the original purposes of the body, 
and how far it has accomplished them. When it is seen 
that there has been great growth in numbers, but that 
the original ideals have been somewhat dimmed and 
forgotten, or obscured by the very formularies which 
were intended to interpret them, there is still, perhaps, 
time to save the movement, and it is the instant duty 
of its adherents to return to a new devotion to those 
ideals, and to set the now full-grown power of the or- 
ganization to their accomplishment. It is the nick of 



12 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

time. It is the moment of destiny. It is the tide in 
the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to 
fortune. By thus reverting to the true purposes of 
the movement its real ends may be accomplished. 
Even the mechanical zeal of the middle period may 
prove no hindrance if it be the precurser of a supreme 
effort in the direction of the primitive purpose. In 
that path lies true success. 

But the second path is open and broad, and many 
there be that go in thereat. It is a road, entering upon 
which the feeling of satisfaction takes possession of 
the host thus formed. It is increased in goods. It has 
achieved a party success, but it has lost the vision that 
gave it birth. The result can be easily foreseen. Its 
power is gone. Like the church in Sardis it has 
a name that it lives, but is dead. Like the church in 
Laodicea it says, "I am rich and have gotten riches, 
and have need of nothing," but it knows not that it is 
wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. 
Like the church in Ephesus, it has left its first love, and 
needs to remember from whence it is fallen, and re- 
pent and do the first works. Otherwise the end is near. 
A certain career of narrowing usefulness will follow 
by very force of the momentum achieved. Then les- 
sening progress, growing indifference, increasing dis- 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS. 78 

integration, failure, death. The candlestick has been 
removed. 

Now in the things which we are saying, the chief 
point is this : The Disciples of Christ began their work 
with a clear and lofty ideal, the unity of all God's people 
upon the apostolic foundation. For this principle there 
was a deep and holy enthusiasm at the first, and but lit- 
tle thought that its realization was a matter of long de- 
lay. The fathers' saw that sectarianism was the chief 
obstacle to the success of Christianity, and they be- 
lieved it possible to reach a unity of the people of God 

which should vindicate our holy faith in the eyes of the 
world. Into this enterprise they threw themselves with 
unrestrained enthusiasm. They cared little for organ- 
ization, but they sought everywhere a hearing. They 
were not so much a body of people as a voice. Like 
that other voice in the wilderness of Judea, they wished 
nothing for themselves, but everything for the prin- 
ciple of which they were the heralds. That was the 
first period of our work. 

Then came the delay. The Christian world did not 
take up the cause of unity with any enthu- 
siasm. It was either indifferent or hostile. It was 
apparent that a campaign was needed. Only num- 
bers could give effectiveness to a campaign. Hence 



74 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

came the zeal for numbers, influence, machinery. All 
these came gradually. But the danger incurred in the 
growth of such a movement, especially in its tran- 
sition from the first to the second periods, was pres- 
ent. We have now become such a people as the fath- 
ers never dreamed of. We have grown by insistence 
upon Christian unity upon the apostolic foundation. 
Yet to this plea we have added a tremendous enthusi- 
asm and an aggressiveness which would have wrought 
wonders even with a less vital plea. In fact, it is per- 
fectly apparent that there are many men in our ranks 
preaching Christian unity upon the apostolic founda- 
tion who comprehend neither Christian unity nor apos- 
tolic Christianity. The watchwords may be the same 
as those the fathers used, but there is constant danger 
of losing the germ of truth while holding tenaciously 
to its shell. 

We stand therefore at the opening of the third pe- 
riod of our history. Before us open two paths. The 
one is the way of true success. It can only be entered 
by taking earnest heed to the things which we have 
heard from the fathers lest we drift away from them. 
We have the organization and strength to make Chris- 
tian unity effective if we will. This is not to be done 
by means of platforms and conferences. These only 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS. 75 

emphasize the obstacles. It can only be done by actu- 
al attempts to unify the Christian spirit and activity of 
the places where we have churches. If our churches 
in all towns and cities where they are found would 
g begin at once the cultivation of Christian fellowship 
P with all other churches ; promoting such united efforts 
r as should bear witness to the reality of our plea, we 
might become a power where now we are only a sect. 
No compromise of the truth would be necessary. All 
that is needed is the recognition of such elements of 
Christlikeness as appear in our religious neighbors, 
and they are many. United evangelistic meetings may 
be held, in which, instead of being left out, and then 
rejoicing that *'the union meeting of the sects met with 
but slight success in this place'' (!) we should be 
the leaders ; exchanges of pastors can be arranged with 
neighboring churches ; when the pastor of one of our 
churches is absent, what could be more Christian and 
inspiring than to invite a sister congregation to wor- 
ship with us and have its pastor preach? By such 
and many other methods our plea for Christian union 
would be taken seriously in many communities where 
now it is unknown or regarded merely as a sectarian 
shibboleth ; and moreover there would come far more 



76 OUE PLEA FOR UNION. 

favorable opportunities to proclaim in a spirit of love 
what we hold to be apostolic Christianity. 

The other path is broader, smoother, plainer, and 
many of our people are already beginning to enter it. 
It is to go on building up a sectarian organization, em- 
phasizing numbers, increasing machinery and using 
the old familiar watchwords, but with neither the de- 
sire nor the expectation of making them succeed. For 
a few years more we shall be strong, shall perhaps in- 
crease in strength. But soon the end will come in 
declining numbers because the motive is lost. The 
fate of the other denominations will be upon us. It 
will be found out that our devotion to Christian unity 
was but a name ; our definition of apostolic Christian- 
ity narrow and partisan. 

We have yet the choice before us. We stand at 
the parting of the ways. The next ten or fifteen years 
will largely decide which path we shall enter : the path 
of true success by earnest and self-forgetting advocacy 
of the principles for which we historically stand, or 
that of self-seeking devotion to numbers, but with a 
loss of vision, a lessening of enthusiasm, and the swift 
death that waits upon decay. 



CHAPTER IX. 



DENOMINATIONAL SENTIMENT. 

One who has been reared among the Disciples of 
Christ, or has companied with them long enough to 
catch the watchwords and phrases current in this 
reformation, will have learned to identify certain types 
of thought and sentiment as characteristic of the 
movement. Wherever these phrases are heard one 
who belongs to this company of believers feels at home. 
The very dialect of the Disciples has peculiarities 
which may be recognized in all quarters. How often 
is one of our people heard to say that it would be im- 
possible for a Disciple to be a member of any other 
church ; that we have the truth, and if the denomina- 
tional world would only open its eyes and read the 
Bible, nothing could prevent all who stand elsewhere 
from coming with us ; that our preachers are the best 
in the world; that our churches are the most cordial 
and homelike ; that one never can feel the same in any 

77 



78 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

other atmosphere ; that we know the Bible as no others 
know it, and that we are becoming a great people, 
soon to take the earth. These are phrases taken at 
random from that extensive list familiar to us all, and 
they have a deep and abiding meaning as we repeat 
them to each other. It is difficult for us to believe 
that any other body of people can have the same close 
fellowship, the same deep conviction of truth, the same 
love for the Scriptures, the same confidence in their 
right understanding of the Word of God, the same 
aggressive and direct appeal to the world that we 
have. 

And yet perhaps one of the qualities which we need 
to add to these admirable features of belief is a wider 
acquaintance with the actual sentiments prevailing 
among our Christian neighbors with reference to the 
denominations with which they are identified. If one 
were to go into a Baptist family, where the tradi- 
tions of denominational life were well preserved, he 
would find the same pride, the same tenacity of pur- 
pose, the same confidence of having the correct relig- 
ious position and the same wonder that any should 
fail to see things from that point of view. In Presby- 
terian ranks it is even more truly the case, by reason 
of the fact that Presbyterianism has a history runnin^, 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS. 79 

far back into English and Scotch Hfe. Added to his 
apparent certainty as to his theological position, the 
Presbyterian has a pride in the historic influence of the 
church with which he is connected, which traces to 
the inspiration of Presbyterianism most of those great 
achievements in the domain of liberty, both on this 
continent and in Great Britain, of which the Anglo- 
Saxon race is proud. 

With the Episcopalian the sentiment is the same, 
though slightly differing in its ground. He has no 
doubt as to the correctness of his church position and 
its harmony with the Scriptures. He has heard it de- 
fended, since his earliest years, by men skilled in apolo- 
getics, and he is convinced that, added to the fact 
of harmony with biblical teaching, the church has the 
finest order of services and the most direct connection 
with the apostolic church of any body of believers. In 
the Methodist Episcopal Church one meets the same 
type of belief. The Methodist is confident that he 
knows the Bible, for one of the tasks emphasized by 
John Wesley was the study of the Word of God by his 
people, and to this the Methodist adds his admiration 
for the magnificent machine which Methodism has pro- 
duced in the world, and his belief that no other body 
of people makes so much of vital religion as his own. 



80 OVR PLEA FOR UNIOK 

In the story, "O'er Moor and Fen," by Silas Hocking, 
there is an admirable illustration of this sentiment. 
The speaker is an elder in the Methodist Church in 
England, and is referring to that superiority of Meth- 
odists over all others, which is the settled conviction 
of himself and of his people. He naively says, 
"Of course I need not enlarge on the fact that Meth- 
odist preachers are far ahead of any others. That goes 
without saying. I am anything but a narrow man, 
and will admit that there may be good preachers among 
the Independents and Baptists, or even in the Estab- 
lished Church, although they would all be wise if they 
gave up their fads and came over in a body to our 
denomination. But as for comparing the preachers 
of these sects with our preachers, well, it would be like 
comparing skim milk with good cream. Why, the 
other day I went to hear the Bishop of the Diocese, 
and I could not help feeling sorry for the congrega- 
tion. Such poor, watery stuff you never heard. As I 
said to one of our local preachers, what a pity it was 
we couldn't get the Bishop to one of our local preach- 
ers' homiletical classes, it would have done him a world 
of good. But there, the man was more to be pitied 
than blamed." Probably every body of people holds 
similar views regarding its own superiority, from the 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS. 81 

Roman Catholic to the Quaker. Sometimes the senti- 
ment finds humorous illustration in the sort of 
preaching which one finds in small and remote 
districts, and the dogmatism of the holding 
forth is usually in proportion to the obscurity of 
the sect and the unconsequential nature of its tenets. 
An unusual degree of charity for others, and of hope 
for their salvation, was therefore exhibited by the 
mountain preacher in Kentucky who exclaimed, 'The 
Lord air powerful good, an' if he neow and then lets 
in a sinner as has plumb repented, even if he don't 
come up to this yere standard, I hain't a-goin' ter 
object. There may be some in other churches as don't 
know no better, and the Lord may, now an' then, take 
pity on some on 'em. But, brethering, mine's the 
reg'lar way." 

Reflection upon these facts will bring to the Disciples 
of Christ the conviction that two things are necessary 
to the successful propagation of their plea for Chris- 
tian unity upon the foundation of apostolic Chris- 
tianity. The first of these is the cheerful and cordial 
recognition of the fact that our denominational 
brethren believe themselves to be right in their Scrip- 
tural positions, and are convinced, each one of them, 
that his church is superior to all others in the par- 



82 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

ticular point which he believes of the most vital mo- 
ment to Christianity; and the second is of equal im- 
portance, viz., wisdom to see that to most of them 
our claim to superiority seems like arrogance and intol- 
erance, especially to those who have been reared in 
these different denominational atmospheres. Nothing 
but the full recognition of all the truth possessed and 
all the Christian spirit manifested by our religious 
neighbors can give us the slightest ground of approach 
to them in the plea which we make. That we have a 
plea which must be presented to them, and whose ac- 
ceptance is essential to the welfare of the church is a 
certainty. How shall we most effectively present it? 
We may assume a polemic attitude, charge upon their 
ranks and steal some of their members now and then ; 
but we shall never be able to make a really successful 
attempt to bring Christian unity to pass, until we see 
that others as well as ourselves have strong convictions 
and perfect confidence in their position, and will only 
yield what seem to us minor and unimportant conten- 
tions when they are persuaded that the welfare of the 
cause of Christ demands emphasis both at home and in 
the foreign field upon that ''unity of the Spirit in the 
bond of peace," for which our Master prayed, and 
which is the hope of the choicest spirits in the church 
today. 



CHAPTER X, 



APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY— THE SOURCES, 

A people professing to be the exponents of the 
apostoHc church should be clear in their own minds as 
to what that term really signifies. It may be well, 
therefore, to consider the matter from four points of 
view, the sources, the doctrine, the ordinances and 
the spirit of apostolic Christianity. And first as to 
the sources. 

The New Testament presents approaches to the life 
of Christ from various points of view, and 
this variety is one of the chief elements in the 
completeness of its presentation of our Lord's 
work. One who would gain a comprehensive view 
of the apostolic Christianity of the first century, as 
interpreted by the followers of Jesus, must give care- 
ful attention to the different groups of writings which 
the New Testament contains. These groups, in gen- 
eral, may be viewed in the following manner : 

83 



84 OTTR PLEA FOB UNION 

I. The Gospels contain the portrait of Jesus given 
as completely as was possible in so brief a space. 
They do not purport to give the life of Christ, but 
only such portions of it as directly concern the preach- 
ing of the Gospel in the most effective manner. They 
reveal his spirit in dealing with men, his views of 
God, of righteousness, of sin, of judgment, of eternal 
life. This teaching for the most part is found under 
the general category of the Kingdom of God, which 
was Jesus' way of referring to the new social order 
which he was inaugurating. The Gospels deal with 
the prophetic expectations of the Messianic work, with 
the teaching of Jesus, his miracles and his programme, 
and gradually they rise from the largely national 
interests, which concern the Gospel of Matthew, up 
through the varying grades of Roman and Greek 
thought to the universal point of view, where all na- 
tional distinctions are lost and the highest spiritual 
atmosphere is gained in the Gospel of John. It is not 
surprising, therefore, that these four books, with 
which the Epistles of John are so closely related in 
spirit, deal but little with what might be called the 
organized forms of Christian activity, but rather with 
the spiritual purposes of our Lord in giving expres- 
sion to the life of God which he revealed. 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS. 85 

2. The Acts is in one sense the continuation of 
the narrative of early Christianity, as it found formal 
expression in the activities of the Christian com- 
munity after the day of Pentecost. The church now 
became the visible embodiment and representative of 
the Kingdom insofar as the King;dom could be ex- 
pressed in an actual organization. The society of 
believers grew, and this growth demanded a certain 
unity of action and co-operation. The Book of Acts 
is the picture of the church at work under the di- 
rection of the apostles, guided by the Holy Spirit. 
The whole atmosphere of the book is that of move- 
ment, of energy, of activity. It is therefore practical, 
and its teachings grow out of the witnessing of the 
apostles to the life and character of Jesus, and take 
the form of a history of their work. The book shows 
how the early Christians did, therefore how Chris- 
tians of all ages are to do. Its purpose was both to 
illustrate the outgoing energies of the new organism 
as embodying the facts of the great commission in 
actual service, and also to show how men were 
brought to Christ in the apostolic years ; and all this 
under the constant oversight of the Holy Spirit. 

3. The Epistles of Paul approach the character of 
Christ from still another point of view. They make 



86 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

but slight reference to .his actual life, which is the 
theme of the Gospels, nor do they lay special stress 
upon the activities of the church, though they refer 
frequently both to the Apostle's work and to that of 
his spiritual children in the various communities 
where he had preached. But the general impression 
of the Pauline writings is that of Christian truth pre- 
sented not so much in the form of systematic treatise 
as of personal instructions to believers regarding 
their duty to Christ and to each other. They are 
not theological in the sense of being ordered dis- 
courses upon the elements of Christian faith; but 
they are none the less theological as embodying the 
teachings of a master in the faith, who felt that if 
one's point of view was right he could be trusted to 
work out the problem of his Christian life. The four 
groups of Pauline Epistles have each its own special 
theme. That of the first, the Thessalonian group, is 
the coming of the Lord, and in general the doctrine 
of last things. The second group emphasizes the 
great truths of our holy faith as set forth in the 
epistles to the Galatians, Corinthians and Ro- 
mans, and where these epistles are most practical 
they still hark back to the doctrinal teachings which 
form their principal theme. Those of the third 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS. 87 

group, including Philippians, Colossians, Philemon 
and Ephesians, deal with the Christian in his rela- 
tions to Christ and to his fellow-believers in the inti- 
macy of the domestic, social and church life, and 
their chief end is the exaltation of the character of 
our Lord as over against all the misleading tenden- 
cies of the time. The fourth group, including I 
Timothy, Titus and II Timothy, may be called pas- 
toral, as giving special thought to the welfare of the 
churches in their organization and activity. In this 
group we approach nearest to the atmosphere of the 
Acts. 

4. The Epistle to the Hebrews presents Christ 
from a still different point of view ; addressing itself, 
as it does, to that class of Jews who were troubled by 
what seemed the poverty of the new faith in the ele- 
ments of gorgeous and time-honored ritual which had 
characterized Judaism. It seeks to show that Chris- 
tianity is still better furnished in these regards than 
even Judaism; that it has a mediator greater than 
prophets, angels, Moses or Joshua; a high priest 
greater than Aaron; a sanctuary more glorious than 
the temple ; a covenant founded upon better promises 
and more enduring than that given to the fathers, 
and that its most glorious factor is Christian faith 



88 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

which lays hold upon the unseen rather than upon 
the spectacular ministries of the temple, which are 
temporal, about to vanish away. This is the first 
great apologetic, and its emphasis is laid upon the 
analogies offered by Judaism to the chief elements of 
Christian belief. 

These are not the only types of teaching found, 
but they are the chief. There are of course the 
Apocalypse or Revelation of John, and certain other 
varieties introduced in James, Peter and Jude. But 
these four stand out prominently as the leading rep- 
resentatives of New Testament thought. It is easy 
to see that if one were to confine his attention to 
either one of these four groups he would have only 
a partial view of the Gospel and its work. The man 
who studies exclusively the Gospels and the writings 
of John will have what may be called an ethical, mys- 
tical, or almost totally spiritual conception of the 
character of Christianity as an idea in the world, 
mediated by Jesus, but not taking its place so much 
as an organism as a spirit or purpose in human 
hearts. Nearly all the partial views of Christianity 
which have tended to mysticism have drawn exclu- 
sively upon the material of the Gospels and the writ- 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS, 89 

ings of John, without balancing that conception by 
other necessary features of the New Testament. 

Again, one who confines his attention largely to 
the Book of Acts is likely to interpret Christianity 
as being chiefly concerned with an organization. The 
activities of Christian life, its plans of work, its prop- 
agation, its extension in all the world, these are the 
chief features of the book, and one might, by undue 
emphasis upon this, to the exclusion of other portions 
of the New Testament, form an idea that Christianity 
consisted in the building up of a church, or a body 
of churches scattered throughout the world, without 
perceiving the real character which the churches 
ought to manifest or the spiritual power of the Christ 
within them. 

Again, if one were to confine himself largely to the 
writings of the Apostle Paul his view of Christianity 
would become the doctrinal view. He would con- 
ceive of our holy faith as consisting in certain propo- 
sitions to be accepted, and would feel that when this 
creed was perfected his duty was performed. This 
is precisely what has frequently transpired. 

Lastly, if the Epistle to the Hebrews is the favorite 
portion of the New Testament, there is the danger 
that the view taken will be that Christianity is sini- 



90 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

ply a larger Judaism, and that all the elements of the 
Old Testament faith are necessary approaches to a 
true understanding of the Gospel. Such a person 
will spend much time in investigating the character 
and structure of the tabernacle worship, the Aaronic 
priesthood, and the various symbols which the writer 
of the epistle summoned to do service as aids in 
interpreting the work of Christ. Thus that which 
was intended to be simply a help to Jewish Christians 
becomes the standard of interpretation for the church. 
The remedy for all these partial views of the Gospel 
is to be found in a careful adjustment of each to the 
rest. When more closely studied they ought, each 
one of them, to yield the universal elements of the 
faith so that no such mistakes would be made; but 
such has not been the case. The mystic and ethical 
culturist have insisted upon the use of the Gospels 
to the neglect of the rest. The exaggerated emphasis 
upon mere organization and activity has come from 
the undue estimate of the Book of Acts and the neg- 
lect of the other books. Doctrinal and credal en- 
thusiasm has arisen from undue devotion to the writ- 
ings of Paul, and forgetfulness of other necessary 
New Testament documents, while the Book of He- 
brews has led many a biblical student into fantastic 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS. 91 

exegesis as remote from practical value as are most 
of the discussions of the Apocalypse. 

The Disciples of Christ must keep constantly in 
mind this lesson. It was especially our task to call 
the attention of the world to the Book of Acts as a 
neglected portion of the Holy Scripture. Our preach- 
ing has always been fashioned by a careful study of 
that book, and since it is the record of apostolic ac- 
tivity and preaching there is always the danger that 
we shall forget those necessary features of our faith 
which are not so much emphasized in this book, but 
are rather taken for granted. The apostles preached 
faith, repentence and baptism in plain terms, to be 
understood by all ; but we must also remember that 
our Lord spoke of being born again in terms mystical 
and spiritual, and yet as valuable as the simpler state- 
ments of the apostles. If we can successfully avoid 
the danger of making Christianity simply a scheme of 
organization, and can adjust our interpretation of 
the Book of Acts with the Gospels on the one side 
and the great teachings of the Apostle Paul on the 
other, so that no element of Christianity is neglected, 
but shall see that the mystical, the spiritual, the 
doctrinal, the symbolic and the practical have a like 
value, we shall gain a fresh enthusiasm in our preach- 
ing of apostolic Christianity. 



CHAPTER XL 



APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY— THE DOCTRINE, 

It has been the contention of the Disciples of Christ 
that the teaching of the apostoHc Church was not an 
elaborate formulation to be expressed in articles, in 
creeds or confessions of faith, but the simple state- 
ment of the divine character, the Messianic dignity 
and the Lordship of Jesus. To discriminate between 
the elaborate pronouncements of Christian teaching 
demanding allegiance to credal statements, only par- 
tially intelHgible to the majority of Christian people, 
and the simple platform of the New Testament, was 
a task of supreme interest in the days when this 
reformation began, and when much was made of 
doctrinal orthodoxy. To call the attention of the 
world away from the elaborate tests of fellowship 
which had been set up by various bodies of Christians, 
and to invite the thought of the world to the charac- 
ter of Jesus was a task of supreme moment and meas- 
ureless results. It has been proven that this service 



94 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

was in the interest of Christian truth and a larger 
view of Christ. The creed basis has lost strength 
from year to year, and most of these formulations of 
earlier days have today only the value of landmarks 
in ecclesiastical history, interesting but not authorita- 
tive. The Westminster Confession, the most ambi- 
tious of all, has long since lost its true significance 
as a religious symbol, and most of those who are in- 
terested in its retention as a creed are not so minded 
because they accept all its statements, but because 
they are disinclined to see it discredited before the 
world. 

It requires no courage in these days to assault the 
creeds, and for the most part the necessity for such 
procedure has quite passed away. There was a time 
when the Disciples held the only brief for this posi- 
tion, but more recently they have been joined by 
nearly all of the churches in their protest against 
human statements of doctrine, and in a demand for 
return to the simple oracles of God. It has been the 
conviction of our people from the first that the center 
of Christian belief is not a creed but a life, and that 
life the Son of God. To accept Jesus as the object 
of our faith, rather than a set of doctrines, has been 
our testimony and plea. This we have maintained 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS. 95 

was the attitude of apostolic Christianity ; and to this 
attitude it is essential that the Christian world re- 
turn, in order that the spirit of apostolic Christianity 
may once more prevail, and that the Christian unity 
which was the ideal of the apostolic Church may be 
realized. 

But at this very point caution is necessary, lest the 
preaching of Christ become in our own hands merely 
prepositional and dogmatic. The great statement to 
which we have called attention as containing the 
apostolic confession of faith is the word of Peter: 
"Thou art the Messiah, the Son of the living God." 
This we have claimed, and still maintain, is amply 
sufficient for a test of belief, and therefore is all we 
may demand of anyone who seeks admission to the 
Church of Christ. But it is apparent that this con- 
fession of faith is not a mere intellectual assent to his- 
toric truth, but must have yet further value as ex- 
pressing relationship to Christ and his transforming 
power upon character. The affirmative response to 
the confessional question may have no value as indi- 
cating a true attitude toward our Lord and the deter- 
mination to live a Christian life. It is at this point 
that the Disciples have so frequently been misunder- 
stood, or, perhaps, have left themselves liable to a 



96 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

misunderstanding of their teaching. Not infrequent- 
ly one hears the criticism that we as a people make 
nothing of regeneration or a vital Christian Ufe, since 
we demand a mere assent to the statement of a his- 
toric fact or a doctrinal pronouncment. It must be 
conceded that the objection is valid, in so far as we 
do not guard with greatest care the confession of a 
candidate for baptism from the appearance of a mere 
assent to truth. There is no more value in the ac- 
ceptance of the proposition that Jesus is the Messiah, 
the Son of God, than in that of the more elaborate 
confessions of equally propositional nature. It is not 
the belief of a proposition that saves, but the pos- 
session of a life. 

The confession of Peter was the expression of 
faith, of his own conviction and that of his fel- 
low apostles, that Jesus was in very truth the Jew- 
ish Messiah whom they had been expecting and 
whose life had now vindicated his claim to be the 
Messiah, the Son of God. In that sense it was a 
Jewish confession, and would have had little value in 
the mouth of a Gentile, who knew nothing of the 
Messianic hopes of that people. But with Peter and 
the other apostles it was the utterance of a faith 
which laid hold of Jesus as a master and teacher. 



AbfD THE PRESENT CRISIS. 97 

and which recognized in him the fulfillment of those 
hopes and expectations which had given Israel its 
prophetic life. Paul, however, addressed an audience 
predominantly Gentile with a different phraseology, 
more applicable to the teaching of the Gospel in all 
circles, and affirms : "If thou shalt confess with thy 
mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thy heart 
that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt 
be saved/' Here the confession of Jesus as Lord is 
the paramount idea. One cannot confess him as Lord 
without a belief in his divine character, submitting 
to his authority and pledging the life to the Master's 
service in the most unreserved manner. Such a con- 
fession is indeed more than assent to a proposition; 
it is an earnest attempt to incorporate the Master's 
life in oneself. It is this which called forth the 
declaration of Paul to the jailer in Philippi : "Believe 
on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." 
This was no demand for assent to a proposition. It 
was an injunction to enter a service and accept a new 
programme of life. Similar and even more emphatic 
is the confession of faith cited by the Apostle John as 
an essential to Christian Hfe, in an age when men 
were already beginning to question the reality of 
Jesus' earthly career and hum^n character. He 



98 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

affirmed that ''Whosoever confesseth that Jesus 
Christ is come in the flesh is of God," and that the 
refusal to acknowledge this real and ideal humanity 
of Jesus was proof of the spirit of antichrist. In this 
instance the Apostle has raised the Christian con- 
fession to its highest level. It is no longer a mere 
identification of Jesus of Nazareth with the Messiah 
predicted by Hebrew prophets, nor is it alone the 
affirmation of his divine Sonship, nor is it simply the 
confession of his Lordship over the soul, though all 
these were implied as vital principles of Christian be- 
lief ; but it is the confession of the reality of his human 
life as the expression of the life of God in terms of 
flesh and blood, and therefore of the possibility and 
practicability of all men attempting, by the aid of that 
regenerating power which he supplies, to live after 
him the divine life in the flesh, following in the foot- 
steps and possessing the spirit of him who was both 
human and divine, ''God manifest in the flesh." 

No confession of faith which omits these vital and 
necessary features of Christian faith, and gives merely 
an assent to truth without pledging the confessor to 
an earnest effort to give expression in his own life to 
the life of Christ, can be sufficient. Upon this prin- 
ciple, an ample platform, the Disciples of Christ 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS. 99 

stand. They must inevitably fail if they cling to any 
doctrinal holding less ample and vital than this. This 
is the doctrine of apostoHc Christianity: the presence 
of Christ as the object of faith, and that faith the 
all-inclusive and supreme controlling force, the result 
of intellectual conviction and passionate love. Here 
is simplicity and totality. 'Tn this sign we conquer." 



CHAPTER XII. 



APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY— THE ORDI^ 

NANCES. 

There is no clearer proof of the sharp line of de- 
markation between Christianity and Judaism than the 
fact that, though our Lord himself was reared in 
Jewish circles where so much was made of scene and 
ceremonial, and where a multitude of external ob- 
servances characterized public and private worship, 
yet he chose only two ordinances, and those of the 
very simplest character, as the visible and symbolic 
embodiments of Christian truth, and the significant 
forms of Christian obedience and worship. These 
two ordinances were Baptism and the Lord's Supper. 

Baptism was already familiar to the Jews when 
Jesus entered upon his ministry. At the time John 
began his preaching concerning the approach of the 
Kingdom of Heaven and the need of preparation for 
its reception, he adopted, by divine direction, this act 

101 



102 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

of washing the body in water as a religious rite. Bap- 
tism, in John's ministery, was a sign of purification, 
and it held evermore among the Christians this sig- 
nificance. It was not, however, that they believed the 
mere washing of the body had power to cleanse the 
soul; and the taunt on the part of the unbelievers 
that this was its significance, was resented by the 
Apostle Peter, when he declared that it was "not the 
putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the response 
of a good conscience toward God through the resur- 
rection of Jesus Christ." 

After the sacrificial death of Jesus, baptism acquired 
a new meaning, as representing in visible form the 
death, burial and resurrection of the Lord; and still 
later, its third symbolic character became apparent in 
the union of the believer with his Lord by being 
"buried with him through baptism into death ; that like 
as Christ was raised from the dead, through the glory 
of the Father, so he also might walk in newness of 
life." Baptism, therefore, became a most precious and 
significant act in the early church, as embodying both 
the open declaration of faith and trust in Jesus and 
the acceptance of the obligations of his vdiscipleship, 
and also as illustrating before the world his passion 
and triumph. It was the outward sign of the inward 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS. 103 

grace of the regenerate life, and it was also the visible 
token of that knighthood into which the Christian now 
entered, as a soldier of Jesus Christ. Baptism was, 
therefore, the act invariably associated with entrance 
into the Christian society ; and the fact that it is men- 
tioned in every instance of conversion after the day of 
Pentecost proves, not that it was the most important 
feature of conversion, but that it was the part of the 
process which every one saw. 

This much is simple and clear in the light of the New 
Testament teaching. All the baptismal controversies 
which have grown up in the church are the result of 
factors introduced later. Other so-called forms of bap- 
tism were of course unknown among the apostles, and 
it is perhaps impossible to know what would have been 
the attitude of these first proclaimers of the word if 
they had been confronted with those who in all sin- 
cerity had submitted to an act of a different character, 
which had been represented to them as Christian bap- 
tism and with which they were perfectly satisfied as an 
evidence of their loyalty to Christ. No such instances 
occurred in the New Testament. The experience of 
Paul with the ill-informed group whom he met at 
Ephesus, who had been baptized according to John's 
baptism, and therefore apparently regarded John as 



104 OUR PLEA FOB UNION 

the Messiah, affords no hint upon the question at issue. 
It is evident that in the case of one who has submitted 
to sprinkHng or affusion, with the understanding that 
it is Christian baptism, and who asks admission into 
the fellowship of believers upon this evidence of Chris- 
tion life, the New Testament affords no precedent or 
information as to proper preceeding. 

There are those who regard the Christian character 
and the manifestation of the spirit of Christ in the 
life of such a person as stronger proofs of Christian 
standing than any conformity to an outward ordinance, 
and who feel that he, and not another, must be the 
judge of his obedience to Christ in the act of baptism. 
On the other hand, there are many who feel that they 
themselves are responsible for the conduct of their 
brethren in the matter of baptism; who, though 
they will permit the unimmersed to have fellowship 
with them at the community table, and elsewhere, 
withhold from them recognition in the formal 
reception of membership in the church. There are 
still others who believe that in every particular wherein 
the New Testament gives hints of procedure unim- 
mersed believers are already fecognized as members 
of the church of Christ by being so considered in the 
relations they sustain to the work of Christ in general, 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS. 105 

and indeed in every particular except formal recogni- 
tion by the ''right hand of fellowship," which, as em- 
ployed today, is a custom not specified in New Tes- 
tament teaching. Among these various points of view 
it is certain that every Christian will make choice, and 
in accordance with the principle of Christian liberty 
and individual responsibility he must be answerable 
for his views to his Master alone. No one Christian 
can legislate for another upon matters of this charac- 
ter. 

The second ordinance of the New Testament church 
was the Lord's Supper. In this the simple elements 
of bread and wine were employed to emphasize the 
fellowship of Jesus with his people, in a service which 
had both the character of a memorial and a feast of 
the Presence. The early disciples observed this feast 
as often as they came together, there being in the 
words of our Lord everything to encourage them 
to its frequent observance. Later on, as Chris- 
tianity widened its field and settled to the more persis- 
tent and consecutive energies of a growing faith, the 
custom of meeting on the day which had been hallowed 
by the resurrection of the Lord was everywhere ob- 
served, so that "on the first day of the week, the dis- 
ciples came together to break bread." Incidentally at 



106 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

such times other exercises were enjoyed, such as the 
preaching of an apostle, but the purpose for which they 
came together was the Lord's Supper. It had the 
significance both of a memorial of his death and of 
a recognition of his presence with them, and this doc- 
trine of the real presence is one of the essential fea- 
tures of the holy feast, which, though distorted by 
various theories, such as that of "transubstantiation,'* 
still abides as a source of power and life in 
this sacred institution, and wherever appropri- 
ately ministered forms a bond of strength and help- 
fulness to the believer. In some communions of the 
church, the Lord's Supper has been hedged about with 
sacramental significance, while in others it has been 
made so august and awe-inspiring that gradually the 
belief has prevailed that it ought not to be observed 
more than once or twice a year. But it is apparent 
that New Testament usage sanctions its frequent ob- 
servance in a spirit of loving memory of the sacrificial 
significance of Christ's life and of reverent appreciation 
of his divine presence with the communicants at the 
sacred season of its celebration. And thus considered, 
every week is not too frequent a recurrence of its min- 
istration. To those who observe it in this spirit, ques- 
tions of the hour, place and method, will sink into insig- 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS. 107 

nificance, and they will wait its return with that joy and 
reverence which should actuate those who draw near 
in love to their Lord. Indeed, love is the watchword 
of the institution, and wherever it is observed with 
unfailing use of the Lord's words of institution, and 
in the spirit of reverence and holy love, it cannot fail 
to have its true significance and value. 

These two ordinances thus stand, not as hard and 
legal tasks to be set before the believer, as requiring 
an exact and formal obedience, but as loving and de- 
lightful acts of consecration, of imitation and fellow- 
ship, in which is seen the true significance of Christian 
life as a birth from above, a birth of water and the 
Spirit, and as a life nourished by constant impartation 
of the life of Christ. "Except a man be born of water 
and the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of 
Heaven," is the word which emphasizes the initiatory 
character of baptism. "Except ye eat the flesh of the 
Son of Man and drink his blood ye have no life in 
you," is the mystical and figurative statement of the 
necessity that the life should be constantly filled from 
the inexhaustible fulness of Christ. In either case, it 
is not the outward act alone which secures the divine 
blessing, but rather is the outward act the expression 
of an inner temper and disposition which is the secret 



108 OUB PLEA FOR UNION, 

of union with Christ. They are therefore seen to be 
essential ordinances of the church, but need to be 
preached in a spirit which magnifies the essence and 
not simply the form. They are means of grace to every 
life. We cannot discard them, nor change them, nor 
empty them of their significance without being wiser 
than our Master and thus failing to catch his spirit, 
which is the essence of the Christian life. But that 
very spirit will lead us to speak concerning them the 
truth in love and to believe that every man must be 
fully persuaded in his own mind regarding these as 
other elements of Christian teaching; that we are not 
the keepers of our brothers' consciences, and that a 
spirit of confidence in each other's honesty and loyalty 
to Christ will be likely to lift us above the sky-line of 
partisanship in all questions of this character, and 
bring us to that unity which will itself delight to be 
obedient to the Savior in all the commands which he 
left to his followers. 



CHAPTER XIII 



APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY— THE SPIRIT, 

The plea for a return to the programme of apos- 
toHc Christianity presupposes a knowledge of the 
essential factors of the apostolic Church. Considera- 
tion has already been given to the sources, the doc- 
trine and the ordinances of the primitive church. It is 
of equal moment to give thought to its programme 
of living. By this is not meant the actual rec- 
ord of the conduct of the early Christians; for, as 
might be expected in the case of believers who had 
so recently emerged from Judaism and heathenism, 
their standards of life were immature, and their be- 
havior was accordingly often far from consistent with 
Christian profession. When, therefore, one speaks of 
the restoration of primitive Christianity, it is to its 
ideals as set forth in the teachings of our Lord and 
the Apostles that reference is made, not to the actual 

109 



110 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

conditions prevailing in the churches at Jerusalem, 
Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, Rome and in Galatia. 

It must not, however, be understood that the Chris- 
tians of the first century did not present striking 
proofs of their holy calling in their lives. The New 
Testament is the glowing record of the radical 
changes wrought by the Spirit of Christ among his 
followers. The bearers of the new name that was 
first, perhaps in derision, heard upon the streets of 
Antioch^ were a marvel to all who observed their 
deportment, and saw the beauty of character devel- 
oped under the impress of the new life. That was 
the marvel of the Gospel. Those who looked on were 
astonished at its results. Individual life among the 
Christians became invested with a new significance; 
domestic purity and affection were conspicuous; the 
relations of master and servant, parents and children, 
husband and wife were shadowed by a new sense of 
holiness. Life became a consecrated thing; the com- 
monest things were dignified and hallowed; the 
simplest duties were sacraments. It was this new 
meaning in life which astonished all observers, and 
made Christianity unique and impressive, a myster- 
ious force which seemed to open to unlearned and 
ignorant men wells of living water which proved too 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS, 111 

deep to be reached by all the apparatus of Greek phil- 
osophy; which give to weak and timid confessors 
a strength beyond the boasted power of Rome. 
Among the marvels of history none is greater than 
the change in man's view of the sacredness of life, 
and his holy joy in its possession, wrought by the 
coming of Christ. This is the perpetual change pro- 
duced by the coming of the Gospel to those ignorant 
of its power, and the miracles of its influence may be 
seen on the mission fields today as in the days of the 
Apostles. 

Yet it is not to human life that Christianity points 
as its vindication, for the church is ever in the process 
of disengaging itself from the clinging influences of 
the heathenism it is leaving behind. Still less would 
one wish to insist that the faith should be wholly 
judged by the conduct of those who stood at the very 
beginning of this purifying process, and had least of 
that spiritual momentum which comes from centuries 
of Christian history to assist them in their effort. It 
is rather to the Christ himself that we must look for 
the true ideals of the church; to his character and 
conduct, his teachings, his attitude, his point of view. 
There is not a moment in his career that does not 
throw light on the life he expects us to live, and the 



118 OTTR PLEA FOR TTNION 

instructions of the Apostles are only interpretations 
of his ideal, the guiding landmarks along the path- 
way that leads to the possession of "the mind that 
was also in Christ Jesus." 

What then was the spirit of Apostolic Christianity? 
What are some of those ideals which it set before 
the world, and which must be embodied in any pro- 
nouncemerit which purports to represent our holy 
faith? 

First, the animating motive was love of the Mas- 
ter. It is far from sufficient to say that Christ was 
reverenced as Savior and Lord, and was everywhere 
preached as such. That was but one side of the 
shield. The heart of Christianity was revealed in the 
passionate devotion to Jesus as one whose Gospel 
had indeed convinced the intellect, but much more, 
whose love had won the aff-ections. Paul's rapturous 
devotion to the Lord whom he had never seen in 
the flesh is constantly revealed in those utterances 
which glow with the fervor of his kindled love. His 
references to our Lord, especially in Colossians and 
Ephesians, are not merely the words of a convinced 
believer, but of an enraptured lover. That affection 
which he might, or may in earlier years, have lav- 
ished upon wife or child, and of which his nature was 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS. 113 

SO full, was now wholly enlisted by that divine Friend 
and Master whose excellencies he could never suf- 
ficiently express. To ''know him'' in the intimacy of 
the closest fellowship was his supreme desire; to 
"win Qirist," as a lover seeks to possess the object 
of his affections ; to be ''in Christ," not in the formal 
sense of joining a circle of which Christ is the center, 
but of gaining access to the heart of the Lord, as 
one enters the confidence, the affection, the heart of 
another, these are Paul's supreme ambitions. What 
is true in his case is seen also in those others of the 
Apostles who have left on record their thoughts re- 
garding the Lord. The ideal of early Christianity 
was the possession of the spirit of Christ, his mind, 
his character, his point of view, his purposes and his 
passion to do the Father's will. The highest motive 
that could constrain these primitive saints was the 
"love of Christ,'' which was both his affection for 
them, and their ardent response. As they felt that 
nothing could separate them from the love of God 
manifested in the Master's life, so with equal and 
responding regard they cried, "Who shall separate us 
from loving Christ?" 

They were also earnest students of the Scriptures, 
which included at that time merely the Old Testa- 



114 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

ment. Those who had been Jews marveled at the 
new meaning seen in their ancient writings in the 
light of the life of Christ. These books, which before 
had seemed but indefinite and vague, now became 
luminous as foreshadowings of the Messianic work 
of the Master; they were gravida Christi, pregnant 
with Christ, and his ministry brought to birth all the 
gracious purposes of God. They not only ''searched 
the Scriptures to see whether these things were so,'' 
but they went for daily counsel to those writings of 
*'holy men of old, who spoke as they were impelled 
by the divine Spirit," conscious that they were "given 
for our admonition." Prayer was also an element of 
daily spiritual nurture, the opening of the doors of the 
nature to the incoming of God. This is the soul's 
great need. It is not "blessings" for which we need 
to ask, but the supreme "Blessing," the presence of 
God in the soul. This is the great need, whose sup- 
ply leaves all other wants satisfied. Our Savior's need 
of prayer, and the frequent admonitions of the New 
Testament to "continue instant in prayer," not as a 
religious duty, much less as a form of words, but as 
an attitude of worship, and as the ever-effective means 
of spiritual renewal, are sufficient to point out the 
Christian ideal. 



Al^D THE PRESEI^T CRfSIS. 116 

Such qualities cannot fail to express themselves in 
character, wherein a true Christianity most fully re- 
veals itself. Not standing, but motive, disposition, 
nature, are the true tests. Therefore the apostolic 
insistence upon purity of heart as the secret of pos- 
sessing the vision of God and the power of resisting 
evil. The life which has ''risen with Christ," and has 
already striving within it the impulses of the realm 
"which is above, where Christ is seated at the right 
hand of God," lays aside by the very necessity of its 
purer being the black list of unworthy motives and 
defiling actions, which can no more grow upon it 
henceforth than a nettle upon a glacier. Hence- 
forth, by persistent effort, are banished as wild and 
obscene beasts not only those outward defilements 
which bring public reproach, but as well those de- 
fects of disposition which brought down upon the 
offenders our Lord's severest condemnation. It is 
significant that Jesus said far less of the sins which 
men commonly condemn than he did of pride, cen- 
soriousness, uncharitableness, pharisaism, unbrother- 
liness, and all the catalogue of sins which if more 
subtle, are more disastrous. The world itself con- 
demns the former, while it may leave the latter to 
eat as a canker at the heart of character. 



116 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

In a word, the emphasis of early Christianity was 
placed not alone upon doctrine or ordinances, but 
upon life, conduct, character, disposition, temper. 
Our Lord and the Apostles spoke of the conditions 
of pardon. But they also spoke, and at much greater 
length, of the conditions of growth in Christian life. 
To love God with the whole nature, as he is revealed 
in Jesus ; to abide in daily fellowship with him through 
the study of the Scriptures and prayer; to maintain 
purity of heart and life ; to keep the soul open to 
truth, and to have that ''joy of the Lord which is 
strength ;'' to "be anxious in nothing/' but to 'Vejoice 
evermore"; to cultivate the graces of thankfulness, 
appreciation, quietness, trust in God and expectation 
of good; to accept sorrow, not as the expression of 
God's wrath, but as the occasion for his most precious 
comforts; to love all men, to give oneself to hospi- 
tality, kindness and good works, "to visit the father- 
less and the widow in their affliction, and to keep 
oneself unspotted from the world'' ; to believe all men 
capable of being saved, and to labor unceasingly for 
that result ; to cultivate the sense of the divine Pres- 
ence, and to seek the fuller possession of the Spirit 
in the heart, and the larger realization of his fruits 
in the life ; in a word, to take as the themes of thought 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS. 117 

and the ideals of life ''whatsoever things are true, 
whatsoever things are honorable, whatsoever things 
are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever 
things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good re- 
port, and whatsoever things are virtuous and praise- 
worthy" ; this it is to possess ''the mind that was in 
Christ Jesus,'' this it is to stand in that fair com- 
pany who are "as lights in the world, holding forth 
the word of life/' this it is to reproduce the spirit of 
apostolic Christianity. 



CHAPTER XIV 



THE FORM OF CHRISTIAN UNION, 

All the leaders of Christian thought in these days 
are prophesying that Christian unity is in process of 
realization, and that ultimately the Church of Christ 
will be one throughout the earth. The predictions as 
to the method of realizing this end are by no means 
so harmonious, however, and at this point all fore- 
casts are likely to be errant and partial. It is un- 
necessary indeed that one should assume the role of 
prophet further than to point out some of the ap- 
proaches to a solution of the question, and to indicate 
the futility of some methods which are urged as 
steps to the desired end. 

It is clear that no scheme of absolute uniformity 
can ever be realized. Such plans have been proposed 
on every hand. Uniformity might take the particular 

curve of creed, of church organization, or of a form 

uy 



130 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

of worship. In none of these directions is it possible 
of attainment. The creeds themselves have all been 
divisive in their character. The creed of Nice was a 
protest against Arius and resulted in division. The 
creed of Trent was a polemic against the Protestants. 
The Westminster Confession of Faith was a fulmina- 
tion against the Arminians. The Thirty-nine Arti- 
cles were directed against the Catholics and Inde- 
pendents. Even the simple Congregational confes- 
sion was aimed at the Unitarians and Universalis ts. 
Any creed more elaborate than the confession of the 
apostolic church is incompetent to serve as a basis of 
unity. Nor can agreement be obtained in the matter 
of church government. It is perfectly impossible to 
harmonize in one organization those who hold to the 
strongly centralized forms of church organization and 
those of a more free and independent character. No 
scheme of this kind can be effective. Nor can any 
uniform plan of worship be devised. Even in the 
same denomination there will be different methods of 
church service, varying from the simple to the elab- 
orate, and all of them helpful so far as they are in- 
formed by the spirit of worship. To secure such 
uniformity as has been described in creed, organiza- 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS. 121 

tion or form of worship would only invite return to 
the old and dead uniformity of Romanism, which we 
have happily escaped, and for which liberty perhaps 
even the present division of the church is not too 
heavy a price to pay. 

Yet any plan of Christian union which is not in- 
clusive of those forms of Christianity which are us- 
ually considered more distant and inaccessible, such 
as the Episcopalian Church in America and the Estab- 
lished Church in England, and the Roman Catholic 
and Greek churches, cannot claim to be large enough. 
It is clear also that before this final unity can be 
reached the various Christian organizations must give 
up those things which are least characteristic of prim- 
itive Christianity and, what is more important still, 
must abandon those features which are least in har- 
mony with the spirit of Christ. They must be willing 
to surrender that which is peculiar as a denomina- 
tional characteristic for the sake of the unity of the 
whole church. The Roman CathoHc must give up 
the papacy and the fiction of temporal authority. 
The Episcopalian of England and America must dis- 
tinguish between the priestly and the prophetic func- 
tions and accord to all men the liberty of prophesy- 



22 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

ing, or preaching in the apostolic sense. The pedo- 
baptists must give up infant baptism of every form as 
unscriptural and divisive. The Baptist must abandon 
close-communion as exclusive and unfraternal, and 
every order of Christians must leave behind those 
elements of sectism which disfigure them and render 
impossible the unity of believers. 

But that it is easy to lay down this programme and 
correspondingly difficult to realize it will be instantly 
affirmed by those who regard the present religious 
conditions with attention. One cannot but remember 
Macauley's famous saying regarding the solidarity 
and persistence of Roman Catholicism as a force 
likely to survive all present organizations of the 
church. One cannot but view with admiration the 
massive structure of the Church of England, or per- 
ceive the time-honored observance of infant baptism 
as it has grown up in the church, or look with interest 
upon the hold which close-communion has on many 
sections of the Baptist brotherhood. But to all such 
doubtings as arise from considerations like these the 
response may be made that we do not need to argue 
against papal supremacy, or episcopacy or pedobap- 
tism, or close-communion, for the spirit of the age 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS, 123 

and the Spirit of Christ are accomplishing their de- 
struction. It is becoming increasingly difficult for 
papal power to maintain itself on the old lines. The 
spirit of democracy is undermining that gigantic 
structure with absolute certainty. There will come a 
time in the progress of years when certain forms will 
become impossible because they are out of harmony 
with their environment. Romanism is feeling this 
disintegrating force as her greatest danger. The 
same thing is true of the hierarchical government of 
the EngHsh church and the Episcopal church in 
America, and in due measure of other forms of epis- 
copacy or centralization as found in others of the de- 
nominations. It is not we who have to contend 
against these unscriptural forms. We need not even 
argue the question as to whether they have been 
useful at certain periods in the history of the church. 
The fact which confronts us is their growing inutility 
and their consequent early decline and disappear- 
ance. Other considerations forecast the abandon- 
ment of infant baptism and close-communion. The 
former is being gradually given up in many of the 
churches where it is still maintained theoretically as a 
permissible and laudable as well as scriptural act. 



184 OUB FLEA FOR UNION 

and some form of consecration is being substituted 
for it. As for close-communion, it is destined to early 
abandonment, even by the Baptists themselves. Thus 
Christian unity does not seem so impossible even in 
its widest ranges when considered in the light of the 
logic of events. 

The ultimate form of church organization will 
probably be congregational, not merely because the 
New Testament churches were congregational, 
though this was the fact, nor indeed because there is 
any defined scheme of church organization in the 
New Testament which requires this particular form, 
but because the plans which the Apostles used in 
the first century seem better suited to the needs of 
the entire brotherhood of believers. There is no 
doubt that some centralized method of church gov- 
ernment saves much waste in the employment of 
Christian energy, on the part both of ministers and 
congregations ; but this is accomplished at so great a 
cost in friction and discord, in the suppression of the 
best forces of human nature and the quickening of 
jealousy and strife where church authority is im- 
posed that it can only lead in the end to the abandon- 
ment of the whole scheme of centralized government 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS. Urj 

and bring in such Congregationalism as insures to 
every group of worshipers its absolute freedom in 
Christian service. When this time comes, the co-opera- 
tive energies of the church will be far more largely em- 
ployed than even today, with all the show of authority 
and supremacy which is seen. Left free in these regards 
the church will feel the joy of uniting its forces in 
free and delightful co-operative plans for social re- 
generation and the evangelization of the world. 

The church of the future will include a far greater 
variety of organization, worship and doctrine than has 
ever yet been seen. No plan of Christian union can 
be conceived that does not admit these varieties, and 
recognize in all of them helpful and necessary expres- 
sions of that Christian liberty which is perfectly con- 
sistent with loyalty to Christ. The church of the 
future in its unity of spirit and service will include 
such seeming contraries as belief in the sovereignty 
of God and the freedom of the human will. It will 
embrace in its fellowship the man who believes in the 
divine transcendence and the one who emphasizes 
the divine immanence. It will unite in fraternal bonds 
the man who believes in the divine unity and the one 
who holds strongly to the trinitarian view. Those who 
insist upon the perfect humanity of Jesus and those 



120 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

who are equally strong in the proclamation of his 
divinity will work side by side, and each will find in 
the other his necessary complement. The freedom of 
the individual Christian and the authority of the 
church will meet and harmonize. Individuality and 
solidarity will strike hands as friends. Those who 
emphasize reason and those who magnify faith will 
find that they can stand upon common ground. Sci- 
ence will be studied as never before, and theology 
will find in it a sister science and not a foe. Miracle 
will have its true place, and the reign of law will be 
discovered to suffer no shock thereby. Culture and 
piety will go hand in hand, and will not be ranged 
against each other as is now often the case. The au- 
thority of the Bible and the necessity for biblical crit- 
icism will both be recognized and each given its legit- 
imate place in the scheme of Christian thought. In 
this variety will be found the surest sign of the vitality 
of Christianity, which like nature tends everywhere to 
variation and thus to growth. None of these ele- 
ments is at variance with loyalty to the great veri- 
ties of our holy faith, and when they are recognized 
in this light they cease to be sources of disquiet and 
vexation to Christian thinkers, and become rather 
aids to faith. 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS. 127 

On the question of ordinances the same liberty will 
prevail. At first this liberty is likely to lead to va- 
riety of practice, and probably the subject of baptism 
will be the last to receive satisfactory adjustment in 
the scheme of a united church. Patience will be re- 
quired at this point, and forbearance, perhaps more 
than at any other. There will be congregations 
which practice only immersion and admit to 
fellowship only such as have been immersed, 
There will be those who practice only immersion, 
but will admit to their membership those who 
have submitted to sprinkling or pouring as 
baptism, upon the ground that the individual 
must be responsible for this obedience to the Lord. 
There will be still others who use immersion, sprink- 
ling and pouring indiscriminately and hold no par- 
ticular testimony upon the form of baptism so-called. 
But in this matter as in those of government and 
creed it is impossible to escape the conclusion that 
as the church develops in the spirit of unity and the 
particular denominational barriers are broken away, 
there will be a more general recognition of the apos- 
tolic practice in the matter of baptism, and less ten- 
dency to maintain for traditional reasons other prac- 
tices which have no authority in holy writ. At the 



138 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

same time the church universal will more and more 
place emphasis upon individual responsibility as the 
determining factor in this as in other particulars. Man 
must be permitted to make his own choice between 
apostolic and non-apostolic practice, and to assume 
responsibility for his conduct. Christian liberty and 
individual accountablity must be everywhere recog- 
nized. 

It need scarcely be urged that such drawing to- 
gether of Christian forces will result in an economy of 
service in the home and foreign fields such as has never 
yet been possible, and perhaps it is the demand for 
unity which the missionary work makes upon the 
church that will tend to hasten the consummation 
more than any other motive. Where men are falling 
down before idols of wood and stone, it seems nothing 
less than tragic that Christian teaching should as- 
sume various and contradictory forms. And scarcely 
less tragic do such differences appear in our own land, 
and especially in our great cities, where men are fall- 
ing down before the idols of the market-place, and 
losing their faith in Christ because of the enmities of 
his people. The pleas of missionaries in foreign fields 
that the church should find a common basis upon 
which to stand, and the imperative necessity for unity 



AtfD THE PRESENT CRISIS. 139 

presented by the exigencies of city mission work not 
only demand the attempt to accomplish such unity, 
but are themselves the predictions that it will come 
to reality. 

We shall see this unity accomplished not all at 
once but gradually and by the pervasion of the church 
with the real purpose of the Gospel, and the mind that 
was in Christ Jesus. Denominations may unite from 
time to time ; indeed they are uniting in ways which 
half a century ago would have seemed unaccount- 
able. Churches are federating for the purpose of 
Christian service, and this should be accomplished 
in a far more extensive manner than has yet been 
undertaken. Conventions ought to be held for the 
promotion of Christian unity by every means. But 
by none of these methods will the final unity of the 
church come about, though all will serve as means 
to that end. In the last issue it can only be brought 
to pass by the increase of the spirit of love among 
the people of our Lord, that spirit which recognizes 
the mind of. the Master wherever it is exhibited, 
which sees that the things which unite are far more 
vital than the things which divide, and that the great 
unities of our holy faith have already been set forth 
by Paul, the most distinguished of apostolic advo- 



130 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

cates of Christian union, whose great classic on the 
subject needs to be repeated again and again, until 
it becomes a sort of private and public confession of 
faith and a molding influence on every Christian life : 
"I, therefore, a prisoner in the Lord, beseech you to 
v^alk worthily of the calling wherewith ye are called ; 
with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suflfering, 
forbearing one another in love; giving diligence to 
keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 
There is one body and one Spirit, even as also ye 
were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, 
one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, 
who is over all and through all and in all ; * * * 
till we all attain unto the unity of the faith and of the 
knowledge of the Son of God, unto a full-grown man, 
unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of 
Christ." 



CHAPTER XV. 



CHRISTIAN UNITY— AN APPEAL. 

The Disciples of Christ have now some three- 
quarters of a century of history. During all this 
time they have made clear and explicit proclamation 
of two great, and as they conceive, neglected, factors 
in the life of the church, viz., Christian unity and the 
programme of the apostolic church. During this time, 
by insistence upon these factors, not a little change 
has been wrought in the sentiment of the Christian 
world. There is much more interest shown today in 
the feasibility of Christian union than ever before. 
There is also a real earnestness seen in all the 
churches in an effort to find out what was the actual 
teaching of the New Testament, and to go back to 
Christ. The credit for this change is not entirely 
ours, and yet no doubt we have had a marked influ- 
ence in calling the attention of the Christian world 
to these things. 

131 



132 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

These two truths stand as the central features of 
our pronouncement. No one would undertake to 
deny that they have been prominent in our preaching 
from the first. At least it may be said that apostolic 
Christianity has been our most vigorous watchword, 
and that Christian unity was understood to lie some- 
where in the vicinity as a matter to be insisted upon 
at all appropriate moments. But at this point the 
question arises, Do we quite understand what apos- 
tolic Christianity involves? Have we not tended to 
reduce it to a formula which is too small to contain 
all the facts the New Testament reveals? Certainly 
apostolic Christianity embraced the preaching of 
faith, repentence and baptism, but it embraced very 
much more than this. These are really not ''first 
principles," but subordinate to the great first prin- 
ciples of the Gospel — the love of God, the redemptive 
work of the Savior, the character of the Church as 
the visible embodiment and instrument of the King- 
dom of God, the necessity of regeneration and the de- 
velopment of character as the proof of the Christ-Hke 
life, as well as obedience to our Lord in the declara- 
tion of faith and in baptism. Considering the variety 
of types of thought manifested in the New Testament, 
is it true that in our proclamation of apostolic Chris- 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS, 133 

tianity we have given a sufficiently ample interpreta- 
tion of what that Christianity was, not in its real man- 
ifestations among the raw and untrained churches of 
the first century, but in its ideals as exhibited in the 
teaching of our Lord and his apostles? Have we set 
forth in the fullest manner the teaching, the ordin- 
ances and the spirit of the apostolic church? 

Again, regarding the principle of Christian unity: 
Have we sufficiently taken into consideration the 
problem involved in seeking to call the attention of 
the church universal to the practicability of a closer 
union of the people of God ? Has not our pronounce- 
ment tended to be narrow and provincial in many 
instances, owing to the fact that we have an inade- 
quate conception of what the ultimate Christian unity 
will be? Are we expecting that the whole Christian 
world will come into our fellowship ? If so, is it likely 
we, or any other generation, shall see this realized? 
If we do not expect this, but content ourselves with 
saying, *'We do not ask them to come to us, but to 
come to Christ," but at the same time hold in reserve 
the feeling that if they will come to Christ they will 
find us already there, and that this will amount to the 
same thing as their joining our church, are we not 



134 OUR PLEA. FOR UNION 

also deceiving ourselves as to the real facts ? For we 
need, perhaps, to make as much concession in our 
disposition and spirit as others in their forms of teach- 
ing and practice. 

In other words — What are we doing as a people 
to realize the Christian unity of which we have ever- 
more spoken? Is it not time that we were giving 
practical expression to this watchword, which it is to 
be feared is in danger of becoming merely a shibbo- 
leth, with no vital relation to our work? It is cer- 
tainly not enough for us to preach the sentiment of 
Christian unity in the seclusion of our churches. 
There must be some practical expression of the spirit 
in the communities where we have existence, or we 
shall become the jest of the religious world, a people 
insisting upon Christian unity, but the most reluctant 
to enter upon its realization. Is it not possible to 
remedy this defect, and give our work a seriousness 
of purpose in the eyes of those to whom our appeal is 
to be made, by a change of attitude in this very par- 
ticular? In any given community the Disciples of 
Christ should be the most enthusiastic advocates and 
promoters of all united Christian effort. Union evan- 
gelistic services are eminently practicable, and in sev- 
eral places these meetings have been organized under 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS. 135 

the leadership of the Disciples with the best possible 
results to the entire Christian community; and the 
result has been to emphasize the real interest of our 
people in such fellowship as brings the forces of the 
Cross into co-operation. If there are those of our 
number who hesitate to engage in these union serv- 
ices from disinclination to appear as advocates or 
apologists for what is done in some of these meetings, 
let them reflect on the alternative loss of all testi- 
mony by absence, and the disapproval likely to fol- 
low such conduct in the judgment of other com- 
munions. It is the conviction of those of our preach- 
ers who have had most experience that we have 
nothing to lose and everything to gain by hearty and 
cordial participation in all such endeavors, and that 
our presence is of itself often effective in preventing 
those grotesque features of revivalism which have 
grown obsolete in the more intelligent communities, 
but which wherever used tend to bring religion into 
low esteem in the minds of thoughtful people. Such 
practices as the mourner's bench, the storming of 
heaven for favorable divsposition toward sinners, the 
insistence upon a glowing and spectacular ''experi- 
ence/' and the belief in the mechanical action of the 
Holy Spirit upon the unconverted, become impossible 



136 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

where our people are admitted as helpers, even with- 
out protest on their part. It is a result for which to 
be grateful that such an influence for good can be ex- 
erted by co-operation. On the other hand there are 
no methods calculated to reach the results of per- 
sonal acceptance of the Christ, such as the use of the 
after-meeting, the inquiry-room and individual labors 
with the unsaved, in which we cannot heartily engage. 
It is not alone a question of joining with our religious 
neighbors. We should be the first to propose and 
the most active in securing such united evangelistic 
services, and even where the evangelist is not of our 
choice, and does not preach what we believe to be 
the ''whole gospel/' we are still vastly the gainers 
by the plan, not only in the numbers added to our 
churches, which is not the most important feature, 
but as well by our influence throughout the meetings. 
Moreover we need to remember t^^nt no people is so 
well prepared as are we to produce evangehsts of the 
first order, whose services shall be in demand for 
united evangeHstic meetings. The type of evangelism 
is constantly improving, and the grotesque features so 
much deprecated will soon become obsolete. Tt is 
ours to supply the men needed for this service, men 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS. 137 

who combine a broad and clear view of the truth with 
the ability to speak that truth in love. 

Again, in several places the Disciples have organ- 
ized and carried to successful issue biblical lecture 
courses, which were attended by the members 
of all the churches in the community, including 
Episcopalian and Roman Catholic as well as 
many forms of dissent and skepticism, with the 
result of deepening Christian faith, of removing ob- 
jections to Christianity, and of cementing the fel- 
lowship of those who love our Lord. In two or three 
instances one of our congregations, in the absence of 
its pastor, has invited a neighboring congregation to 
come and worship with it, bringing its own preacher ; 
and the impression made was most happy and fra- 
ternal. In other cases congregations of our brethren 
have invited to a banquet the pastors and 
official menibens of all the churches of the 
community, and the results of such gatherings have 
been most notable in securing a new standing for our 
people in those cities, and emphasizing their real 
interest in the union of all Christians. In other 
instances (lie l^isciples have taken active lead 
in movements for civic righteousness and social 
regeneration. In all these ways the real pur- 



1S8 OUR PLEA FOR UNION 

pose of our work has been emphasized and illus- 
trated. Only by such methods can we ever attain the 
place to which our principles entitle us, and most of 
all, which we are competent to fill as the living expon- 
ents of Christian unity in the localities where we have 
representation. 

It may be said that by these methods of fellowship 
we shall lose our testimony, and simply give aid and 
comfort to the sectarian world by appearing to ap- 
prove of their present methods and teaching. The 
answer is obvious. We all recognize our denomina- 
tional friends as brethren in Christ, equally zealous 
with us for the promotion of Christian life in the 
community, and only lacking some features which we 
believe inherent in New Testament teaching to be 
fully obedient to our Lord. How shall we best gain 
their confidence and impress them with whatever 
truth we hold save by such manifestations of fraternal 
regard as give us the right to speak to them in behalf 
of the great truths we hold ? Moreover it is apparent 
that the very types of united work to which refer- 
ence has been made aflford us the best possible means 
of emphasizing in a loving, and yet uncompromising, 
spirit, those truths which we hold to be vital to Chris- 
tian life. We shall never be less loyal by such manifes- 



AND THE PRESENT CRISIS, 139 

tations of a friendly spirit, and we shall at the same 
time gain for ourselves a record both as living em- 
bodiments of the spirit of the Master, and as pos- 
sessing a testimony which is practicable and may 
find adequate expression in the life of the entire 
Christian community. We shall by this means, and 
apparently by this means alone, come to be taken 
seriously as a people not only with a watch-word but 
with the ability and earnestness to make that watch- 
word real in the communities where we exist. For 
such an enterprise as this no better moment can be 
found than the present. Shall we not turn the un- 
measured strength of our organization, which has 
been rapidly maturing during the past years, to the 
accompHshment of the great purpose with which 
we began our life ? 



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